


Tiny Tony Overlord

by petroltogo



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bix the HYDRA goon is back, Brainwashing, Canon Divergence - Post-Avengers (2012), Fluff and Angst, Gen, Humour, Mental Health Issues, Minor Character Death, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, Morally Ambiguous Character, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Time Travel, Winter Soldier Bucky, deaged tony, protective winter soldier, tiny tony
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2018-02-23
Packaged: 2019-01-29 20:01:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 44,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12638160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petroltogo/pseuds/petroltogo
Summary: Post CW: It’s a straight-forward plan. All Tony has to do is mess with the time storage, destroy an unspeakable Evil that has already defeated them once and keep everyone alive. Whilst in the body of his ten year old self and relying on incomplete memories. Sounds simple, right? Of course then SHIELD goes and declares him a super villain.Featuring tiny!Tony, protective!Winter Soldier and lots of broken laws. Why be good when the bad guys are so much more adorable?





	1. Reset

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my first longer, multi-chaptered project in a while! I'm really excited about this story and I hope you'll have as much fun reading it as I do while writing :D 
> 
> Updates will be on Sundays. 
> 
> Betaed by the talented [@folklejend](https://folklejend.tumblr.com/).

 

> “ _Nothing can be undone, only ever erased_.”

.Earth.

_Estimated chance of success: 21.83 %_

Tony stares at the data on the screen with the closest thing to trepidation he’s still capable of.

“Not the worst odds I’ve gone up against,” he announces to the room at large, sarcasm sharpening the words into a weapon too twisted to be wielded against anyone but himself. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

No one answers.

Tony knocks back a vial filled with something worse than poison before he has to remember why that is.

* * * * *

“ _The procedure is unreliable. There is no telling how much of your knowledge will stay with you—or when it will manifest itself_. _”_

“ _I know the risks_. _”_

“ _I am not convinced you truly understand them, though.”_

* * * * *

.New York.

Tony hits the ground hard enough to punch the air from his lungs, and for a long moment, it’s all too much.

The world is a bright clutter of swirling colours that hurt when he looks at them for too long. Beneath his fingers the floor is solid, hard but uneven, and scrapes his fingers when he rubs them over it in an attempt to hold on to _something_.

His every breath is a painful wheeze by this point, the air heavy with smoke, smells he can’t identify, and a weird sort of crackling electricity. Coughing, he forces his body into an upright position, thin arms shaking so hard he abstractly wonders whether he’ll hit the floor with enough force to break his nose this time, should they give out under him.

This first clear—if somewhat befuddled—thought is like a shot of ice water in that it shocks Tony’s system into full awareness again. He brushes the unhelpful tears away with a shaky hand, stares around what must have been a normal if unfamiliar café at one point.

The scene looks eerily reminiscent of the old black and white pictures from the war his father had shown him once. Overturned tables and chairs, shards of glass, abandoned plates and trampled food. People on the ground, same as Tony, some crying, some yelling, some not moving at all.

Someone stumbles into him, almost knocking him back to the ground again, and it’s then that he registers the noise. Screams. Breaking glass. Splintering wood. Hurried footsteps. Something crashes, loudly, and when Tony turns around, he sees what looks like a very odd car, smashed through a huge glass front. Out on the street, there are people everywhere, some running for cover, others in uniforms and protective gear fighting—each other?

It’s weird, all of it. A bit like a movie he’d watched a long time ago and forgotten the ending of, except Tony doesn’t forget endings. He’s good at memorising stuff, even Howard has said so.

“Take cover!” a gruff voice bellows somewhere above him and Tony doesn’t think, just reacts.

He dives, throwing his body sideways with all his strength. Rolls over his left shoulder to absorb the impact. Hits the ground in a graceless tumble all the same. There is a dull ache spreading in his shoulder, but Tony doesn’t pay it any mind. He’s too focused on crawling on all fours without cutting his palms and knees open, determined to reach an overturned table further in the back, when the world around him explodes in sharp needles and glimmering diamonds.

 _The window_ , Tony notes detachedly, hands curled around his head in a instinctive attempt to protect his face. His heart is hammering against his ribcage hard enough to break bones.

Cover.

Tony clenches his hands into fists. Presses his bony elbows against the ground. Pushes his body forward.

He needs to find cover. Now.

“Over there!” The voice is barely audible over the sound of rushing blood in Tony’s ears. “It’s Stark!”

Three men, all heavily-armed, are running towards him. He doesn’t recognise them, but two wear masks obscuring their features, so that doesn’t mean much. Of course, masks don’t usually mean anything good either. Tony is on all fours before he knows it, scrambling towards that stupid table as fast as he can, but then something gets a hold of his left foot. One harsh pull, and Tony is flat on the ground, groaning.

Again.

Gasping, he rolls onto his back to find a gun pointed at his chest.  It’s a very big gun. Attached to a very big, masked man. Tony freezes.

“What are you waiting for?” the only unmasked one yells over the sound of a distant explosion that makes the ground vibrate faintly. “Shoot already!”

“The target doesn’t match the mission parameters,” the man with the gun replies.

Tony blinks up at the guy towering over him. He’s wearing black goggles that make it hard to tell whether he’s even looking at Tony, never mind reading his expression.

His partner gapes. “Are you fucking kidding me?” The man yells, face rapidly turning an interesting shade of red. “That’s Stark, right in front of you! I don’t care what version of him it is. Just pull the trigger, for fuck’s sake!”

It’s not something he usually does, but in this instant Tony will be the first to admit he’s got no clue what’s going on. Normally when he wakes up with a gun pointed at his head, it’s because people want something from him, from his father—not because they want to kill him. Usually he also doesn’t wake up in the midst of a battleground.

“The target doesn’t match the mission parameters,” Goggle-Guy replies in a monotonous voice that wouldn’t be out of place on a robot.

Maybe that’s what Goggle-Guy is. Maybe this is all a dream and Howard is right, Tony really reads too many science fiction books. The thought makes Tony giggle even though it isn’t all that funny, and once he starts, he can’t seem to stop. Not even with three armed men staring down at him incredulously.

Suddenly Goggle-Guy twists his upper body and, in a movement so fast it blurs before Tony’s eyes, he catches a car door that’s sailing through the already-destroyed glass windows. He _catches_ a car door. _Single-handedly_. And throws it back outside like it’s a frisbee.

Tony stares, open-mouthed. “Woah,” he mutters, unable to keep the awe out of his voice. Then, “The force is strong within you, my friend,” because there is never not time for a Star Wars quote.

The reactions are immediate, if somewhat unexpected. The silent third man, who hasn’t even twitched in the face of Goggle-Guy’s impossible accomplishment, chokes. Goggle-Guy’s head snaps around, and this time Tony knows the man is looking at him, can almost feel the burn of the scarily-focused gaze on his skin.

It’s the unmasked man who breaks the tense atmosphere with a snarl. “I’ve had it with this bullshit!”

For a moment Goggle-Guy doesn’t react at all, but when he does, he’s not speaking English, he’s speaking Russian.

Whatever it is Goggle-Guy says, it doesn’t please Free-Face. “Are you for real?” he yells, outraged. “You know what, I’m sick of this! If you can’t get the job done, I’ll fucking do it myself!”

Free-Face reaches inside his ripped jacket and it takes Tony an unforgivable second to realise what the man is reaching for. And what the job is. Or, more precisely, who.

“Don’t!” the third one yells in an unexpectedly high voice, making a motion as though to reach out and grab Free-Face’s arm, but thinking better of it half-way through.

It’s too late anyway. Free-Face raises his weapon and Tony doesn’t even have the time to close his eyes before the first shot goes off, followed by a second and a third in close succession. They are harsh sounds that cut through the air like knives and grind against his already sensitive ears.

An agonising second passes before Tony’s brain catches up with the proceedings. He doesn’t hurt. Even the ache in his shoulder is dulled by the adrenaline flooding his system. Staring at his bloody hands, covered in cuts and small shards of glass, Tony is very glad for that.

He is also very confused. Surely he should notice getting shot, at least a little? But instead of solving the riddle, it seems like his mind is stuck on the “getting shot” part, unable to process the information and equally unable to move on.

 _Shock_ , Tony acknowledges on some level. _I must be going into shock_.  

Followed by a dry, _Thanks, brain. This does not help_.

It takes Free-Face crumpling to the ground like a puppet whose strings have been cut for Tony to figure out that he hasn’t been shot. It’s Free-Face who’s been shot by Goggle-Guy.

Tony isn’t sure what to do with that information, except numbly watch the third man back away from Goggle-Guy with raised palms. He should be running himself right now, but he simply can’t muster up the brainpower to make a decision, never mind will his body into taking off.

When Goggle-Guy turns back to face him, Tony doesn’t have the energy to be afraid. He is tired, wrung out, and in pain. All he wants is for everything to stop, for the world that feels too bright and messy on his raw senses to make sense again.

“Just get me out of here,” Tony pleads plaintively.

To his genuine surprise, Goggle-Guy jerks his head once in acknowledgement and does as asked.

 

In the rubble they leave behind, a black figure slowly gets to their feet and stares after the departing man and his tiny companion, baffled.

“This is _so_ not good,” they declare.

With a shake of their head, the figure turns on their heels and disappears without a trace into the chaos of the orchestrated villain attack.


	2. Recap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SHIELD is stumped, Tony is a mess and HYDRA is furious. It promises to be an interesting day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woah. I admit I'm a little overwhelmed by the positive response to the first chapter. Thank you all so much for your comments and kudos!!! I hope you'll enjoy this chapter, it'll give you some answers at least ;)
> 
> Betaed by the talented [@folklejend](https://folklejend.tumblr.com/).

.Helicarrier.

“Everybody _shut up_!” Nick Fury yells and finally, for the first time in twelve long, frustrating hours, blessed silence reigns in SHIELD’s headquarters.

With a deep sigh, Fury closes his eye, opens it again, and lets his gaze wander over the assembled people, all of whom belong to the best of the best SHIELD has to offer.

At 4:12 am, his entire organisation is on the brink of total mayhem, all because of one man. Or rather the disappearance of one man. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that said man is Anthony Stark.

“We’ve got a room filled with some the best hackers, analysts, profilers, tacticians and spies in the world,” Fury says after a long moment, just barely restraining himself to keep from screaming. “Now can someone, _anyone_ , explain to me how we’ve lost Iron Man in the middle of New York City with no ideas as to where he is or who might’ve taken him? Anyone?”

This time, the silence is a lot less blessed and a lot more tense.

Fury rubs his temples. “Alright then. Hill! What do we know about the attack?”

Maria Hill straightens in her seat. “Oliver McWalker, age twenty seven, studied micro-biology until he dropped out of college after he was accused of regular misuse of the equipment and several cases of theft. No suspicious activity after that, no arrests, nothing that pinged our radar.” Hill clicks her tongue, obviously displeased by that oversight.

“Yesterday at 2:39 pm, McWalker set off a couple of small explosive devices in a park.” Hill presses a couple of keys on her keyboard and the screen to her left flares to life, depicting the surveillance footage from the park in question. “The authorities were first alerted at 2:42. A domestic terrorism special unit was supposed to handle it, with the support of the local police force. McWalker proceeded to use a device similar to a flamethrower that appears to contain a violet, highly flammable substance, as well as several other weapons the officers on the scene assumed to be magical. Our lab is still working to identify them all. The Avengers’ assistance was requested at 2:54. Captain America, Hawkeye, Black Widow and Iron Man were sent in and arrived at 3:01.”

Hill pauses for a moment to take a gulp of the huge cup of coffee in her hand. An unsubtle reminder that even Fury’s always impeccably dressed and composed assistant is running on less than four hours of sleep.

“Captain America engaged McWalker with Black Widow as back-up whilst Hawkeye and Iron Man helped with the evacuation. Now this,” Hill points at the screen, where the images flicker and turn black almost simultaneously, “is where things get spotty. It appears that before being subdued by Captain America, McWalker managed to set off an explosion of sort that disabled any working technology within two miles of the blast. According to Hawkeye, Stark was forced to leave his suit, which we have been unable to recover. Hawkeye then lost sight of Stark when a group of armed men in black combat uniforms attacked them. Black Widow and Captain America never saw Stark thorough the entire battle.”

Another screen flares to life, this one displaying a map of the location of the attack.

“This,” Hill points at a side street near the park’s back-entrance, “is Stark’s last known location. In his direct vicinity, one grocery story, two cafés and a house have been damaged by the fight.”

“So we know he’s been there,” Fury muses. “The rest of the team?”

“Captain America and Black Widow didn’t leave the park until near the end of the fight. Hawkeye appears to have started out on the other side of the road and then moved towards the main street.”

Three dots appear on the map. The fourth one remains a single question mark.

Fury frowns at the screen. “Was Stark intentionally separated from the others?”

“It’s possible.” Hill tilts her head in consideration. “But we don’t have the necessary data to confirm it.”

“Was the electrical wipe-out intentionally used to make Iron Man vulnerable?”

“It’s possible, but we don’t have the necessary data to confirm it.”

“Was Stark taken or killed?”

“It’s possible.” Hill pauses.

“But we don’t have the necessary data to confirm it?”

“You’re a quick learner, sir.”

Fury glowers at his cheeky assistant. “In short, we don’t know if Stark was the intended target, we don’t know if McWalker was working alone or if this was a coordinated attack, we don’t know what weapons he used, we don’t know where Stark is or whether or not he’s alive, we don’t know what happened to his armour, we don’t know who the enemy forces were working for, and we don’t know about anything that happened within a two-mile radius from that damn park.”

“That about sums it up, sir.” Hill takes another gulp of her coffee.

“What about the bodies?” Fury stares at the headshots of the men that didn’t live to tell the tale after facing of against the combined force of three of SHIELD’s most dangerous agents.

“None of them appear in any of our databases,” Hill denies with a shake of her head.

“So another dead end then.”

Hill sends him a half-hearted smirk. “I’m afraid so, sir. Our techs are tracking McWalker’s movements to figure out how he got a hold of the components of these weapons, but so far they haven’t made much progress. Our only lead is the three surviving, unidentified men we have in our custody. They are likely to wake up sometime in the next 48 hours.”

“Mother fucking Stark and his god damn drama!” Fury pinches the bridge of his nose in frustration. “Alright, Wesley, get me Romanov on the line. Last thing I need is for the Avengers to go and make this mess even worse. Hill, take care of our wannabe villains. Nobody sees them, nobody talks to them, nobody who isn’t already in this room even knows they exist. Got it? The rest of you, get out of my sight, catch some sleep, and if you aren’t back at eight o’ sharp, you will live to regret it!”

“But sir!” a newbie protests. “That’s in less than four hours!”

Luckily for everyone involved, another techie manages to drag him out of the room before Fury gets the chance to make an example. Under the man’s baleful, slightly deranged glare, the room is cleared in record time.

 

* * * * *

.Zach’s B&B.

Tony stares down at the newspapers titled “PURPLE WIZARD ATTACKS NEW YORK” in bold, black letters. He doesn’t know what the most confusing part is: That an official publication uses the word ‘wizard’ seriously, that the date appears to be 02/09/14 or that none of this seems as weird to him as it should be. The picture on the front page shows Captain America in mid-strike and just looking at it makes Tony’s head hurt even more.

It has to be a fake because Captain America went down in WWII, everyone knows that. His father has been searching for the body forever. At the same time though, it looks completely accurate to Tony, even provokes a fond ‘ _Always has to solve a problem with his fist. Some things just never change,_ ’ somewhere in the back of his mind. Conflicting facts and memories are warring in his head, things he knows to be true and things that can’t be false contradicting each other, pulling him into opposing directions.

For one thing, Tony is ten. He knows he is. Yet his body feels smaller than it should be, imbalanced and just plain _off_. It’s also 2014, which should freak him out but doesn’t. The technology around him, the fashion, the events, it is all wrong and so awfully familiar at the same time.

Perhaps the oddest part is that Tony isn’t panicking. He isn’t afraid. He isn’t feeling anything at all. It’s like his mind is processing the facts around him, contradicting as they are, but the link to his emotional side is—broken. Cut off. In some way that is perhaps a good thing. It allows Tony to acknowledge with a calm certainty he can’t logically explain that he is misplaced but not out of place. In his time but not.

What is maybe the most frustrating though, is that Tony _knows_ he is aware of the answers to every question his current situation raises, he just can’t seem to access them. They’re right there, lodged in his mind somewhere, yet beyond his reach. And he can’t even seem to feel afraid because of that.

“Fuck.” Tony drops his head into his bandaged hands with a moan. He hates not understanding anything. Especially when it directly involves him.

Unscrewing the cap of the bottle of pain medication Goggle-Guy has produced from who knows where, Tony almost dry-swallows two pills out of habit before he remembers one is more than enough for his current size and weight. He’s not sure what possibility should worry him more, that his body might have been shrunken or that his mind might have been replaced in his younger self. Yet, for some inane, inexplicable reason, he isn’t worried over either of them.

On that note, Tony turns his head towards the darkest corner their cheap but homey motel room has to offer, from where his masked stalker watches him. It’s disconcerting how quickly Tony has gotten used to that sensation. To all of it, really. Even having a man die in front of him doesn’t seem that terrible anymore, now that the shock has faded and Tony has gotten a few hours of sleep.

Jesus, he really makes for a fucked up kid, doesn’t he? Maybe his parents should have sent him to a psychiatrist after all.

Of course, if there had been one thing Howard hadn’t tolerated near his heir, it had been doctors. He’d seen too much of the damage they were capable of, or so Jarvis always says. Complimentary memories of experimentations, trial runs and the mortality rate of the subjects flash in front of Tony’s eyes. They aren’t relevant now though, so he pushes them aside.

“Alright,” Tony addresses his murderous companion, “Care to explain why you and your friends tried to kill me? And why you killed them instead? Is there a bounty on my head? Because that would be cool!”

“No,” the word is muffled by the face mask.

“Oh.” Tony deflates. “What about a name then?”

“The Asset has no name.”

Cue the creepy, robotic voice again.

“Technically I suppose ‘Asset’ could count as a name,” Tony disagrees on principle. Then promptly wrinkles his nose. “Not an _acceptable_ name of course, you’ve got me there. And really, talking about yourself in third person? That’s some wacky disassociation shit you’ve going on there, sweetums.”

So maybe Tony is a bit more comfortable with this complete stranger than he should be.

“Can you at least lose the mask and goggles? Honestly, I can’t believe nobody has called the cops on us yet!” Tony doesn’t remember much of how they’ve gotten to this little bed and breakfast, or how they got a room for that matter, but walking around with a muzzle isn’t what he’d call inconspicuous.

Goggle-Guy doesn’t bother with a verbal answer, simply lifts one hand and pulls first the goggles and then the mask off. Tony blinks at the uncharacteristic—and how would he _know_ that?—compliance.

“Holy shit, you’re hot,” is probably not the appropriate reaction, certainly not from a ten year old kid, but Tony will later maintain that it’s still true. Clear, blue eyes, wild hair, a sharp jawline that could do with a shave. All of which is oddly familiar. In more ways than one.

 _I know you_.

“Okay. Right.” Tony clears his throat, tries to shake off the unsettling feeling of having forgotten something important. Something essential.

He needs more intel.

“Can you get me a phone?” Tony blurts out, half wondering whom he’s supposed to call, the other half clearly remembering the tiny devices with a connection to a world wide web filled with information, if only one knows how to use it.

“Acknowledged,” Dead-Eyes—because that’s what they are, as pretty as they look—responds, thankfully distracting Tony from the mess inside his head for the moment.

He’s gone before Tony has the chance to say anything else.

 _Weird guy._ Ignoring the strain on his aching shoulder, Tony folds his arms on the table and rests his burning forehead on top of them. _I missed him_.

He wishes those painkillers would kick in already.

 

* * * * *

Tony doesn’t realise he has nodded off until he opens his eyes to find his cheek pressed against the smooth wood of the table. There is a rectangular plastic case lying next to his right elbow, the only sign of Dead-Eyes’ return. Tony turns around but he needn’t have bothered. As expected, a blank-faced Dead-Eyes has once again resumed his position in the strategically most advantageous corner of the room.

“Thanks for this,” Tony rasps, awkwardly waves the phone around. Then, because his brain is gearing up again and he finally notices the bright pink phone case with the colourful flowers and emoji stickers all over it, “Do I even want to know where you got this from?”

Dead-Eyes doesn’t twitch, much less answer in any other way.

“Why did you get it though?” Tony can’t help but ramble. “Hours ago you pointed a gun at my face, and don’t get me wrong, I think we’ve come a long way. I’m just not sure where the change of heart stems from.”

If possible, Dead-Eyes stands even straighter. “Disobedience is punished,” he states without inflection.

“O-kay,” Tony drawls. “But why obey _me_?”

“The Asset obeys the handler’s commands,” Dead-Eyes answers mechanically. “Disobedience is punished.”

Tony blinks. “I know you’ve answered the question, but that doesn’t really explain anything, you know that, right?”

He receives no response.

After a long moment, Tony decides this is all he’s going to get from his cooperating, yet strangely uncooperative assistant for now and busies himself with googling his own name instead. Which admittedly yields more results than Tony has expected.

 _“DEAD OR ALIVE: TONY STARK MISSING_ ,” “ _The Fate of Iron Man: Defeat or Disappearance?_ ” and “ _Who Will Save Our Hero?_ ” are among the first headlines to pop up, all of them less than a couple of hours old.

To Tony’s disappointment, they don’t have any new information on the attack he’s found himself in the middle of. There aren’t even any mentions of the men in the black combat gear. Everyone seems focused on that Purple Wizard who apparently initiated the fight. Even the fifteen hurt civilians haven’t earned more than a side note so far.

There are quite a few pictures of the Iron Man suit and Tony Stark though. Well, the forty-something version of Tony Stark at least.

Tony frowns.

So another wannabe villain has attacked the city. That still doesn’t explain why he’s woken up in the middle of a battlefield, without his armour, in a body that appears to be around ten years old. Now that he isn’t so busy staying alive, just looking at his tiny hands is freaking him out a little.

He remembers the odd, purple light balls that had been shot around and the way the air around him crackled when he first came to. Is it possible, Tony wonders, that one of those light balls had hit him and reduced his body to that of a child? But for what purpose? And could something like this even be done? Considering what he’s seen magic do and the fact that his body is a whole lot tinier than it’s supposed to be, he admits with a disgruntled grimace that the conclusion isn’t that unlikely.

Tony hisses when a sharp spike of pain disrupts his thoughts for a moment. Perhaps he is more injured than he has assumed after all because his headache doesn’t appear to abate and so far, the painkillers have proven to be entirely useless. Or could this be a side-effect of the violet energy?

What has that stuff even done exactly? Has his body been shrunken? Has his younger body been ripped from his time and immersed into this day? But then what has happened with his grown one? And why does his mental state not fit the age of his physical self? The possibilities are endless, and frankly, they don’t ease the building ache behind his temples at all.

Tony curses. This is why he _hates_ magic.

As much as he doesn’t like any of this though, for now, the “how” isn’t all that important. What matters is that it has happened and he is currently in the body of a child, in a cheap motel room with only a hitman for company. He really needs to come up with a plan. Preferably one that involves him as a grown-up again.

To achieve that, Tony is going to need help. The magic sort of help. Unfortunately, the people who have that sort of expertise aren’t just few and far in between; they also aren’t known for being easy to track down. In fact, there is only one whose location is both publicly-known and easily accessible to Tony in his current state.

“Prepare yourself, buddy,” Tony calls out softly and averts his eyes from the screen which is lit so brightly it hurts his eyes. “We’re going to pay the Avengers a little visit.”

 

* * * * *

.Secret Research Facility.

“What the fuck do you mean you’ve lost the Soldier?!” the commander’s flabbergasted cry sounds from his office, causing all recruits in hearing distance to exchange wary glances.

A moment later, the door his thrown open.

“Rosewell!” The commander yells, incensed.

“Sir?” A rapidly-paling recruit jumps up from his workstation.

“Activate the Soldier’s tracker!”

“Sir, yes, sir!” Rosewell stutters, causing the commander to roll his eyes.

“Useless, the lot of you,” he snarls, spittle flying everywhere, and lifts his phone to his lips again. “And you, White, better be back with the Soldier and Stark’s body in six hours or the state isn’t gonna waste money on your retirement!”

With that, the commander slams his phone onto the table hard enough to cause the screen to crack. Then he suddenly stills and turns back with an unholy gleam in his eyes. “Who in here was responsible for the Soldier’s activation phrase?”

A moment of silence passes before a college-aged kid clears their throat. “I-I believe that was Agent White’s job, sir.”

“Knew I should’ve drowned that whelp when I had the chance,” the commander spits and palms his gun with a hateful expression. “Bloody Star Wars fans.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now that some things have been cleared up and others haven't, what do you think? Any theories on what'll happen next? Please let me know and have a great week!


	3. Recover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> HYDRA is on the move, Bix is scarily efficient and Tony might not remember what he needs to know most, but he sure remembers a lot of other things he'd rather forget.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once more a heartfelt thank you to everyone who's subscribed or bookmarked this story, and of course especially to everyone who has left a comment! 
> 
> Betaed by the talented [@folklejend](https://folklejend.tumblr.com/).

.Minor S.H.I.E.L.D. Unit.

Bix, whose birth certificate states the name Bianca Arlinda White, has had a terrible day so far. Admittedly, the good days have been few and far in between ever since Captain fucking America was rediscovered in the middle of fucking nowhere and successfully defrosted before the right people could get their hands on him. Like Iron Man’s creation hadn’t been bad enough—and really, who could have seen that one coming?

It’s not that Bix has an opinion on their existence one way or another, it’s just that superheroes tend to be, well. Messy. Not to mention that there are only so many high horses and moral bullshit speeches you can listen to before you want to take a nearby machine gun and shut them the heck up yourself.

And then there are those days where they open their damn mouth and take control of your most precious weapon because they apparently eat shameless amounts of luck for breakfast every day. Which is just _not_ _fair_. Just because Bix doesn’t play with the good guys doesn’t mean fate is allowed to mess up every single mission Bix is in charge of. That just isn’t right!

“Enter,” a voice calls out, and Bix pushes the internal rant aside to be finished at another time in favour of entering the small, clean office.

Walter Brickley is the supervising officer of SHIELD’s local strike teams. He is also meticulously dressed, single, in his early thirties, and filled to the brim with confidence and self-importance. In other words he is  _ perfect _ .

Bix observes Brickley’s expression closely. The way he takes in the expensive high heels, the form-fitting blouse with the top button undone, the manicured fingers and the skirt an inch shorter than SHIELD’s dress policies allow. Brickley isn’t a pig, thankfully. He doesn’t leer, doesn’t even stare excessively. It might have made the job easier, but there is always a fifty-fifty chance Bix will snap and break someone’s knee, and that never helps. He is interested though, if his dilated pupils are anything to go by.

“How can I help you, Miss?” Brickley asks, the picture of friendly competence.

Years of practice allow Bix to repress the instinctive grimace and paint a honeyed smile on instead. 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Agent Brickley.” Bix shakes the man’s hand. “My name is Andrina Flynn. I work directly under Senator Stern. I was hoping the two of us could come to an agreement.”

* * * * *

Bix leaves Agent Brickley’s office twenty-five minutes later, the picture of the calm and collected secretary. The closest bathroom is right around the corner, and it takes Bix all of four minutes to replace the skirt with rugged pants, exchange the heels with black combat boots, and pull the long, wavy locks into a high ponytail. By the time Bix’s cell phone rings, the last traces of deep red lipstick have been wiped away and the face inside the mirror starts to look familiar again.

“Yes?” Bix answers, careful to use a deeper voice.

“Agent White, this is Agent Brickley. There is a minor internal security issue that needs to be taken care of immediately. STRIKE team 2 has been authorised to liquidate a threat towards National security. The details will be sent to your phone momentarily. Get a hold of your people and be ready to go in five.”

Bix smirks. “Copy that, sir.”

It is high time to get rid of a certain bothersome — if currently child-sized — genius and reclaim the organisation’s favourite toy.

“But how did you get  _ Brickley _ to agree to this?” Archie Denver whispers quietly in the back of the trunk half an hour later. “The guy is squeaky clean like no other!”

“Oh, Archie.” Bix patronisingly pats the man on the head. “You’re thinking too simple again. You’re still operating under the assumption that you need an army of corrupt soldiers to take on the world. But you don’t.”

The unconcealed glee on Bix’s face makes their colleagues, Hydra and otherwise, shift nervously. 

_ Good. They may survive this retrieval mission after all. _

“All you need is one corrupt mole amongst a sea of honest fools.”

“Ma’am?” an eager trainee speaks up from the other side of the truck, oblivious to Bix’s reflexive twitch. “The target has been located.”

* * * * *

.Zach’s B&B.

Tony is abruptly reminded why he’s chosen to spend the last couple of hours on the uncomfortable seat when he tries to stand and his knees almost give out under him. The dull ache in the back of his head intensifies as well, causing the world to tilt sideways, and for a long moment, it’s all he can do to remain upright and remember how to breathe.

Through it all, Dead-Eyes stays motionless in the shadiest corner of the room and watches him with a blank face. When Tony is aware enough to notice, he appreciates the man’s silence. Mostly though, he just prays for the piercing pain to disappear.

It doesn’t.

_ “Pepper,” he whispers, the word so soft he almost chokes on it. _

_ She doesn’t smile at him like she used to, hasn’t smiled at all since they’ve lost Rhodey, but he reads the understanding in her eyes. Traces the affection in her scarred features. She is still here after all, still stands tall and proud, brimming with the same fiery determination that has first brought her to his attention so many years ago. _

_ “Tony.” She takes his hands into hers, the touch warm and familiar. “There is no cure.” Her voice doesn’t break, doesn’t waver and god, she is beautiful like this. “You know that. You’ve done the best you can, you’ve done everything you can.” _

_ “Not everything.” His eyes burn. _

_ “This isn’t your fault, Tony,” she says with unshakeable conviction. “I love you.” _

_ Their kiss tastes of the tears they’ve forgotten how to cry and he can’t let go of her, can’t lose her, not after everything, not ever, but when she asks, he can’t deny her anything. _

_ She walks into one of their facilities the next day with her head held high, one of Tony’s most devastating, amplified Jerichos strapped to her chest. She takes over 300 Others with her. _

_ The last of Tony Stark dies with her. _

Tony is kneeling on the ground, palms pressed against the solid floor, desperately trying to anchor himself to the present.

He is in a motel. The images in his head, no matter how vivid, aren’t real.  _ Or _ , a darker voice in the back of his head whispers mockingly,  _ are they? _

Tony swallows. Pepper’s face when she found out about the baby — _ too late, always too late _ _ — _ flashes before his eyes, a look of hopeless devastation so shattered, it tears him apart even now. He can’t recall the moments that have led up to this, nor what happened after. But does it really matter? At some point in time, it might have happened, and Tony can’t take that chance. Can’t allow his friend to ever feel pain like that again, not when he can still do something about it.

Stumbling towards the kitchen corner, Tony struggles to open a bottle of water with shaking hands. 

His headache is worse than ever. A reflection perhaps of the utter chaos inside his mind, the strings woven too tightly together to be untangled without ripping them, the gaping holes in between that leave too many questions unanswered.

Tony sways back to the table. Takes another pill on autopilot. Swallows two gulps of water. He tries to set the glass down but his fingers are numb and the glass slips from his grasp. He doesn’t try to catch it. The glass shatters on the concrete with a clash.

_ “Feel better now?” _

_ “No.” _

_ “Throw another plate then. Maybe the world will magically become a better place. Maybe destroying what little we have left is the cure we’ve all been looking for.” _

_ Tony glares at his oldest friend, who is entirely too blasé in the face of his fury. “What do you want, honey bear?” _

_ “I just want to make sure you’re alright.” Rhodey steps a bit closer then, not close enough to touch yet, but close enough to remind Tony that he’s there. Rhodey is always there. _

_ Almost against his will, Tony can feel some of the tension in his muscles dissipating. “Who cares?” he mutters, just to be a stubborn asshole. “I’m just the mass-murdering megalomaniac, aren’t I?” _

_ “I take it the talk with Rogers didn’t go well.” Rhodey doesn’t look surprised. Truth be told, neither is Tony.  _

_ “Yeah,” Tony snorts derisively. “Turns out Captain America doesn’t abide to the, and I quote, ‘needless slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent civilians.’ Who would’ve thought, eh?”  _

_ For a moment, Tony simply stares at the remains of his destroyed kitchen. “He thinks there’s another way,” he whispers eventually, aware of how tired he sounds. _

_ Rhodey’s hand squeezes his shoulder comfortingly. “What do you think?” he asks, face free of any judgement. _

_ It allows Tony to say the words that have been drowned out by Steve’s single-minded determination far too often. “I think he’s right,” he admits. “There is another way. But we’ll lose people every day searching for it. And who’s to say that there’ll be anyone left to save by the time we’ve found it?” _

_ Tony searches Rhodey’s eyes, wills his friend to understand. _

_ “There’ll be collateral damage no matter which choice we make, and by _ _ — _ _ by not containing the damage, we aren’t saving the world, we aren’t even saving the people in the ghettos. We’re absolving ourselves of their deaths, nothing more.” _

_ “Tones-“ Rhodey’s eyes are achingly gentle. _

_ He is interrupted by an icy “‘Containing the damage’?” from behind them. _

Tony feels sick. The memory is frightening in its clarity. He can picture the entire scene in his head, down to the colour of Rhodey’s shirt—red and yellow, because of course Rhodey would wear Iron Man merchandise for this kind of conversation—like it has happened only minutes ago, and the emotions it evokes are overwhelming. 

There is only one question. Who the hell is Rhodey?

Out of the corner of his eyes, Tony catches a blurry shadow moving towards him but he can’t even muster up the will to shield his face. His headache is steadily getting worse. It’s impossible to focus on anything but the piercing pain deep within his skull, burning with an intensity that makes him want to crack his head open just to  _ get it out _ . Pressing his flushed skin against the cool floor helps a little but the relief is short-lasting.

It feels like an eternity before Tony finds the will to turn onto his back. The only thing he wants to do right now is lie here and hope the world will stop turning around him at some point. He can’t though. Not when he doesn’t know what is happening to him and whether these symptoms will pass on their own. Who knows what the purpose of the weird energy that hit him was. It might work like a slow-acting poison. Hell, Tony’s physical self is decades younger than his mind; who knows what kind of effects such an imbalance has? What if his body can’t cope with the strain?

No, Tony can’t afford to waste more time. And once he has managed to formulate that thought in his head, he clings to it. Holds on with an iron determination that has been formed and shaped by terror and loss, left him unwilling to consider anything but success a possibility.

Somehow, Tony makes it back onto his feet and after he has blinked away the first bout of dizziness, things get a bit more manageable.

“Alright, Dead-Eyes,” Tony’s voice sounds about as terrible as he feels but he doubts his shadow will care. Actually, he’s starting to question whether Dead-Eyes is even capable of caring. “Clean this room out, don’t leave anything behind.”

The command sounds odd on his tongue, familiar almost, the way a song from your early childhood might be. Like he’s said it a thousand times before, often enough that the details of every occurrence blur and bleed together. Tony shakes the uncomfortable sensation off. 

He will have to deal with Dead-Eyes eventually, but he is in no state to do a background check, never mind conduct an interrogation. Besides, so far the man hasn’t tried to kill him. That has to count for something.

“Ready?” he mumbles.

Dead-Eyes gives a sharp nod. He’s wearing his goggles and face mask again. The look isn’t as disturbing as it probably should be, but that seems to be a theme where Dead-Eyes is concerned.

“Cool.” Tony staggers towards the door. “Time to visit some old friends.  _ Older _ friends. Urgh, whatever.”

They don’t even make it off the parking lot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know, it's a cruel place to stop. Feel free to yell at me in the comment section! And at least we got a first hint of what happened in the future, that counts for something, right?


	4. Rematch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which all minions like to banter, HYDRA's bad day is about to get a whole lot worse, Fury has a very distinctive growl, and Tony fights a losing battle until he doesn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by the talented [@folklejend](https://folklejend.tumblr.com/).
> 
> A little later than usual, but at least it's still Sunday, so it counts, right?

A parking lot. Tony can’t believe he is involved in a shooting with a black trunk with tilted windows in a parking lot. Seriously, where is the creativity of today’s villains? The surprising twists? The passion?

The plus side of almost getting shot multiple times is the instant shot of adrenaline that hits Tony’s bloodstream and makes him forget about his headache for the first time since—well. Since he was last in a life-threatening situation around eighteen hours ago.

“How did they even find us?” Tony shouts incredulously over the ringing gunshots and dives behind a conveniently parked blue van.

“There are three trackers located in the Asset’s left arm, right shoulder and left heel,” Dead-Eyes answers matter-of-factly.

Tony turns to gape at his companion. “And you’re telling me this _now_?”

“Yeah, I should’ve warned you,” a voice from behind him speaks up. “He’s really not that great a conversationalist.”

Tony whirls around, realising a second too late that the “conveniently parked blue van” is so conveniently parked because it is part of the setup. The side door of the car has been pulled open, revealing three guys in identical black combat uniforms, and Tony finds himself staring down the barrel of yet another gun.

“Is it just me or is this getting old real fast?” Tony grumbles, pointedly raising his hands to stress his unarmed state.

“Yes,” the figure in the middle hums noncommittally. “This does seem vaguely familiar, doesn’t it?”

“Oh.” Tony’s eyes widen in realisation. “You’re Silent Third Guy!”

Silent Third Guy very pointedly releases the safety catch of his gun, which Tony takes as a wordless confirmation of his identity. “Honey, you’ll wanna watch what you’re saying,” Silent Third Guy purrs. “You’re not really in a position where you can afford any more enemies.”

“You’re waving a gun at my face,” Tony scoffs. The banter feels oddly natural. “I’d hardly call us friends.”

“Touché. To be fair though, I tend not to befriend the dead. All that unnecessary drama and heartache just isn’t for me.”

“A reasonable policy,” Tony agrees, his thoughts racing. “Are you at least gonna tell me why you want me dead so badly?”

The question startles a laugh out of his captor. “Why, Mr Stark, on a professional level you are quite a threat. Not to forget your inconvenient tendency to put a wrench in other people’s plans when they don’t fit your goals. And of course, on a purely personal level, nobody appreciates being shown up by a kid less than half one’s age. I’m sure you understand.”

Except for confirming that Silent Third Guy isn’t the mastermind behind the continuous attacks on his life, his ramblings are less than helpful. The guy clearly isn’t stupid. He hasn’t taken his eyes of Tony once and the hold on his gun doesn’t waver. His sidekicks show the same calm competence. Professionals, clearly. Trained in combat, probably with military experience.

In other words, not the kind of enemy Tony can take out in his current state and with his current arsenal, which is limited to a half-full water bottle, the rest of the painkillers, and his wit. Now, Tony is all for confidence and believing in yourself, but even he suspects it’s going to take more than that to take out an unaccounted amount of armed soldiers in bullet-proof vests. Just a hunch though.

At least Tony still has Dead-Eyes, who doesn’t look particularly bothered by the red dots dancing across his chest. The question whether this man is even _capable_ of looking bothered is still up in the air, but Tony decides to take comfort in his decidedly unimpressed expression all the same.

Naturally, that is the exact moment Silent Third Guy finally turns his attention away from Tony and focuses on Dead-Eyes instead.

“Asset!” Silent Third Guy calls out and Tony swears the bastard is smirking. “Stand down! We’ll handle the mission reports after this _discussion_ is finished.”

Tony grits his teeth when all Dead-Eyes does in reply is bow his head with a simple, “Acknowledged.” So much for back-up.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” he announces confidently all the same. It might not sound as ominous as it would have if he had a fully grown body and an Iron Man suit to back up the threat ringing in those words, but oh well. He’ll just have to wing it, as per usual.

“Is that so?”

“Yes.” Tony smiles razor sharp and his mind is running a mile a minute. “Because I really don’t like it when other people touch my stuff.”

He hasn’t been shot yet, despite Silent Third Guy’s proclaimed interest in his death. There is no plausible reason to draw this confrontation out for so long. In other words, he is missing something. Tony _knows_ he is. The question is what it is, and how he can use it to his advantage.

A memory flashes through his mind then, foggy but persistent, and it makes Tony smile in spite of the intense pulse of pain that accompanies it.

_“Just tell me!” Stark throws his arms into the air in exasperation. “I’ve pulled your entrails out of a garbage can—frankly, I’m still disturbed you survived that one. Don’t you think we’re past the evasive answers stage by now?”_

_“Drop it, Stark.” Barnes looks entirely unamused by his partner’s actions. “Down!”_

_“Are you-“ Stark wheezes as he throws himself behind the leftovers of a wall with more force than anticipated. “Are you saying you don’t trust me?”_

_He tries to go for appalled but the words fall flat when he meets Barnes’ steely gaze and the other man freezes for a moment. Then Barnes is backing into Stark’s personal space, towering above him, and his voice when he speaks reaches the arctic pitch that means people are going to die any moment now._

_“Trust,” Barnes spits, “is what gets you killed. The Soldier recognises you as a handler,_ that’s _why he obeys your commands.”_

_He whirls around with an unnatural speed, catches an Other trying to sneak up on him by the throat and unflinchingly breaks the thing’s neck with an ugly crack. Barnes then proceeds to use its weapon to shoot its two companions. The bullets go straight through their left eyes with disturbing accuracy._

_Stark doesn’t even blink._

_“Don’t take this as more than it is.” When Barnes turns back to face Stark, his face is void of emotion. “Handlers come and go. You wouldn’t be the first one I kill myself.”_

_Before Stark has the chance to think of a reply, the comm in his ear cracks to life again and Vic’s sarcastic, “Why do you guys keep getting all emotional on me every time we’re getting shot at?” fills the silence for him._

Tony blinks and the scene is gone, leaves parked cars and machine guns where he’s seen destroyed buildings and ruins seconds before. The memory dissipates almost too fast for him to hold on to any of the details, but the ghost of a oh-so damning, familiar blank face stays with him.

Without conscious thought, Tony’s gaze finds Dead-Eyes’, and it is only when he comes up empty that Tony realises he has been searching for an answer in these lifeless features. He doesn’t know whether that is a good or a bad thing, but then Tony remembers the weapons currently aimed at him and decides it doesn’t matter. What matters is only one thing.

_The Asset obeys the handler’s commands._

Right. That is what Tony has been missing. And maybe Silent Third Guy reads the dawning realisation in Tony’s face because in that moment everything goes to hell.

* * * * *

.Helicarrier.

“What?”

Fury’s growl makes the junior agent twitch nervously. It is a very distinctive growl, one that is only ever used on two occasions: when the director is dealing with the Avengers, and when the director is dealing with Stark. As every intern learns within their first week at SHIELD, though Stark is widely considered a part of the Avengers, he operates on a whole different level when it comes to igniting Nick Fury’s rage.

With one deep breath, the junior agent opens the office door and exposes himself to the fearsome and, more importantly, career-ending glare of Director Nick Fury. The challenging smirk the Black Widow of all people sends him doesn’t help to calm his racing heart at all.

“Director Fury.” The junior agent flushes at the squeak in his voice, but forces himself to finish the message anyways. Just like he has mentally rehearsed it on his way over here. “There have been several calls regarding shots and a possible hostage situation near Prospect Park.”

Director Fury does not look impressed. “And why, pray tell, is this information so urgent it could not wait until the end of an important meeting three levels above your security clearance?” the director demands to know.

“Be-Because any potential interference with a mission rated six or higher is to be reported immediately,” the junior agent stutters, though it sounds more like a question than an answer. “STRIKE Team 2 has been deployed to retrieve an internal security risk. The team’s last known location was close to the reported crime scene, but no shots have been authorised and tech support lost contact with the team over ten minutes ago.”

For a long moment, the office is completely silent.

Then Director Fury lets out a string of very colourful curses that make the hapless junior agent blush and storms out, almost running the kid over in the process.

“Romanov, with me! And someone better be able to tell me why there is a STRIKE team running wild in my city without me knowing about it!”

The Black Widow follows soundlessly on his heels.

* * * * *

.Parking Lot of Zach’s B&B.

One second, Tony is staring down the barrel of multiple guns, wondering if this insane plan is worth a shot. Next thing he knows, a very literal shot takes the decision out of his hands.

Getting shot feels a bit like being punched really hard in the upper arm and it takes Tony’s body a moment to catch up with the happenings. When the first shock fades, Tony is down on his knees, one hand reflexively curled around his shoulder, mouth slightly open in surprise.

“You really need better snipers.” The teasing words are more difficult to voice than Tony would have liked, but he has just been shot, in the back, so he thinks he can be forgiven for the lack in performance. “The ones you got suck.”

Silent Third Guy doesn’t react, just stares down at Tony. To watch him die or because he’s honestly surprised Tony doesn’t know. He doesn’t care to find out either.

“Asset,” Tony rasps, thinks he hears a breath hitch somewhere, “take them all out.”

Gunfire, shouted commands, and screams follow his words, but Tony struggles to focus on any of that. He loses sight of Dead-Eyes and Silent Third Guy, and finds himself staring at the asphalt instead. His hands on the ground, to be more precise. The bandages dirty and soaked with blood. Huh. He forgot about those.

The world is starting to blur around the edges.

Tony fights to keep his eyes open, aware enough still to know he can’t pass out here, out in the open. He rolls then and it hurts like fucking hell, but Tony is small and fits underneath the van easily enough. _Hopefully they won’t try to start the car_ , flitters through his mind at some point. It gets hard to hold on to solid thoughts though, so he lets it go.

His shoulder hurts. Tony feels dizzy and lightheaded and his headache is returning with full force. It all gets too much, too intense, too disjointed until everything just—slips.

On a distant level, Tony is aware of his body, slumped on the ground like he used to be in his blackout drunk days, only sticky with blood. But it’s hard to concentrate on the physical when, thorough all the pain, his mind refuses to stay still. Random facts, numbers, quotes, and half-formed memories swirl around in Tony’s head, demanding his attention, demanding to be acknowledged and sorted and filed away in his brain. Pulling and screaming and yelling, and they are so _loud_.

Tony tries. He tries to meet the expectations, tries to comply, but it’s too much. He is dizzy and it hurts, and Tony is in no condition to keep the pictures, memories, impressions from overwhelming him. This, right now, is something he’s been fighting since he first woke up in that destroyed café. Something Tony has desperately tried to hold back, but can’t.

Because even without the bullet wound and repeated attempts on his life, even without the stress and the confusion, even without Dead-Eyes and his band of stalkers, there would still be Tony, with a far-too-young body holding a far-too-old mind. This isn’t a fight he can win. It never was.

Then the gates are pushed open with one final shove and it’s too late to keep the flood at bay any longer.

_“You would not be the first to access the stream, and you are unlikely to be the last.”_

_“I am Iron Man.”_

_“Any last words, Barnes?”_

_“Insanity will be your greatest friend, knowledge your greatest enemy.”_

_“Even your precious Captain America is not immune.”_

_“How very melodramatic of you.”_

It starts with short thoughts and fleeting impressions. Single moments in time that Tony breezes through without trouble. But that is only the beginning. The memories become longer, gain an added level of detail. Come attached with emotions and context. Soon, they aren’t as easy to brush off anymore, are far too easy to get stuck in instead.

Like a wave building up its height on its way to the coast, the chaos of an entire lifetime compressed into minutes gains more force, more content, more knowledge, more, more, _more_. It leaves Tony barely hanging on the edges of who he is, and it takes everything he has in him to keep his head above the water.

Then the wave crashes.

_“You cannot be more than you are at any given moment in time. It will break your spirit, tear your mind apart, and by the end of it, you will welcome insanity with open arms. For all your strength, you are still human, and there are ways even you cannot walk, Man of Iron.”_

_He stares down at the gravestone, free of name and engraving, free of memories. Like she would have wanted it._

_He looks up._

_“Watch me.”_

And Tony drowns.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep, Tony is still a mess. The last few chapters have been leading up to this "break" of the mental wall (that now strangely reminds me of Sam's wall in Supernatural after he got out of the cage, huh), and even though I feel like the story is moving very slowly it really had to happen. It was just Tony's luck that it happened mid-battle, but then, we don't really expect any different from him, right? :) 
> 
> As usual comments and kudos are very welcome ;) Have a great week everybody!


	5. Reorientation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Bix isn't as indifferent as she'd like to be, a lot of people die put nobody really cares, a miraculous recovery doesn't actually solve all of Tony's problems and, as always, life isn't fair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by the talented [@folklejend](https://folklejend.tumblr.com/).

.Still The Parking Lot of Zach’s B&B.

Bix doesn’t hate a lot of things. Disliking, sure. A ton of things even, Tony Stark currently being on top of that list. But hate? Hate requires effort, hate requires emotional investment, and Bix happens to be short on both.

What Bix definitely and without question hates, though, are the kid’s eyes.

Sure, rationally Bix knows the kid is Tony Stark. The ‘how’ and ‘why’ are two big, blank spots, but watching a forty-four-year-old man being turned into a kid that doesn’t look a day over nine is a pretty eye-opening experience. It also isn’t relevant to the mission. A dead Stark is a dead Stark after all, no matter at what age.

The problem is, he doesn’t look like a Stark. He looks like a child. A child with big brown eyes staring up at Bix and-

Fuck.

Why is it always brown eyes? Why can’t they be green or blue? And why does this stupid detail make Bix hesitate at all?

Stark is still standing there, looking tiny in front of Bix and the other men. He is clutching a half-empty water bottle like it’s a teddy bear and that shouldn’t have any effect on Bix at all. Just because Stark makes for a damn cute kid and his stubborn pout may or may not raise all sorts of protective instincts Bix didn’t even know existed until now doesn’t have to mean anything.

Bix has been serving Hydra for _years_ , has lied and betrayed and murdered for an organisation that doesn’t give a fuck about them. And Bix isn’t doing it because of some twisted conviction to save the world. All that drivel about _humanity being unable to handle freedom_ and how the world has to be ruled to achieve its true potential is absolute bullshit. An excuse for a couple of power-hungry maniacs to justify their genocide, nothing more.

And right now Bix is supposed to murder another kid for their little chess game. A brown-eyed kid.

It is an over-eager underling who decides to take things into his own hands. Far too impatient, he won’t last long in the field.

Unfortunately, Bix doesn’t even get to punish the wayward minion, which is honest to god the best part of being team leader, because in that moment, mini-Stark activates the Asset. The one thing everyone had been so sure he wouldn’t be capable of, wouldn’t figure out how to do in time.

They should have accounted for Stark’s completely unrealistic luck in their plans, damn it.

Not that it matters anymore. The Soldier has been activated. Stark’s command doesn’t leave much wiggle room either. Twelve of SHIELD’s standard combatants against the Winter Soldier? Bix doesn’t need a fortune teller to know how this fight is going to end.

Bix doesn’t bother to share that revelation with the other agents. It would be a waste of time. Besides, it’s not like Hydra choses its recruits based on their well-developed sense of loyalty. Instead, Bix does the only sensible thing when faced with a brutal killing machine that has been turned loose: Bix jumps over Stark’s crumbled body and runs.

 ***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Waking up in a place you don’t remember falling asleep in is an incredibly disconcerting experience. Waking up in a pool of blood, on the other hand, is almost comforting in its familiarity.

Slowly, Tony lifts his head. The motion is less painful than anticipated, considering the amount of blood his body is covered in. Curling his toes and clenching his hands confirms that his extremities are in working order as well, and besides the persistent ache in his left upper arm and the cuts on his hands, he seems to be uninjured.

Tony should probably freak out about the blood on him—he looks like he’s come fresh off the set of a really bad horror flick—but frankly, he’s woken up in worse. Actually, he feels pretty good about himself right now. His pulsing headache has completely disappeared and though no more than thirty minutes could have passed, Tony feels well-rested and energised.

It’s true, he supposes; the mental state does influence one’s physical condition. Because for the first time since he’s woken up in that café, his mind is clear.

Hell, he’s been so gone, he hasn’t even realised how off he has been these past few hours. How foggy and sluggish his mind worked, how many holes there were in his memory that he had lacked the capacity to even notice. He had been running on barely-there instincts and nothing else. It was sheer dumb luck Dead-Eyes hadn’t killed him on the spot.

And then the confrontation in the parking lot. Tony hasn’t walked into an ambush like that in _years_. It is a good thing Vic had been unable to accompany him; she would have murdered him for his lack of caution.

In his defence, Tony had underestimated how _fractured_ , for lack of a better word, the transfer would be. He had been warned, multiple times, about the dangers of messing with the time storage, but those warnings had always focused on the risks of knowing too much. The unpredictable ways the future would be changed by that knowledge alone. The very real possibility of being driven into insanity by a reality that would no longer be real.

In a way, Tony understands those concerns better now. After the constant pain of the last few hours, the sensation of being mentally ripped apart, of being overwhelmed by a life that is not quite his own, the terror of drowning in a future that can never be allowed to come to pass yet has, he gets how tempting an escape from the horror of it all can be.

At the same time though, there is this nagging voice in the back of his mind, the disbelieving “ _Is that really all you’ve got?_ “ he can’t fully silence. Because the truth is, compared to the last couple of years, this pain, this terror, is _nothing_.

Tony winces, instinctively shying away from the darkest of his new memories. The deaths, the hopelessness, the torture, the fight they continued because there was nothing else left to do anymore. The hollow victory when they had finally, finally discovered a cure—too late to make a difference, too late to save anyone. An endless line of faces, young and old. People they lost, people who sacrificed themselves, people who betrayed them in the end.

And now here he is. In 2014, where none of it has happened yet, back in a time where he can still make a difference, and yet Tony doesn’t feel relieved or accomplished—he feels cheated.

Can it really be this simple? Is one highly unstable formula and a reckless veteran of the Last War all it takes to save the world? Granted, he is in the body of his ten-year-old self, which is odd. Definitely not one of the side-effects Tony can remember. But his age is only a minor setback. If what the world needed was a warrior it wouldn’t have been him whom they would have sent. He should still be able to create the cure once he has procured the necessary equipment; he can worry about the distribution after that.

Except. Tony furrows his brows in concentration, does his best to draw up every single memory he has pertaining the invasion, the war councils, the endless hours spent in labs and workshops. He recalls his arguments with Rogers early on, Pepper sobbing into his shoulder at Happy’s funeral, the March of the Dead Children, the mistakes they made in the beginning and then never again. It’s all there, burned into his mind, with a clarity that he knows will give him nightmares for years to come.

The only thing Tony can’t seem to recall is the enemy. Who they were fighting. _What_ they were fighting. He knows there was something; he knows it destroyed them and he knows they found a cure. Tony balls his bloodied hands into fists, and for the first time, there is something like panic uncurling in his chest.

No. This has to be some sort of sick cosmic joke. It’s just not possible. He can’t have forgotten the cure. He can’t have forgotten the threat. The memories have to be there somewhere, buried perhaps, but they have to exist. They _have_ to.

Tony swallows, almost chokes on the bile rising in his throat. He can’t watch his world be torn apart again, knowing something is coming yet unable to do anything until the threat reveals itself. It will be too late by then, he already knows that. Already lived through it once. And if there is one thing he knows for certain, it’s that he can’t live through it again.

 _Please don’t make me live through it again_.

Tony doesn’t even realise how fast he’s spiralling until the heavy sound of approaching footsteps awakens his deeply-ingrained survival instincts. He is on his feet before he recognises Dead-Eyes, who appears to be carrying two bodies. Two very, very dead bodies. The horrifying sight actually helps grounding Tony once more. It reminds him that he is currently standing on a battlefield, and that, at least, is something he knows so well it’s become routine at this point.

There are seven bodies that he can see—which is not saying much if one takes his current size into account—all of them dressed and armed for battle. Dropping to his knees next to the closest one, Tony turns the male onto his back and looks him over. Early thirties, no memorable features, one bullet wound to the head, two more in his chest. He’s not carrying anything worthwhile except for a small knife that Tony pockets and a badge identifying him as Agent Trent Michaels.

“He’s SHIELD,” Tony muses out loud and crawls towards the next body, where he finds a similar badge.

For a long moment he stares at the IDs in silent contemplation. Then he lifts his head and meets Dead-Eyes’ expectant glance. “Get me the others as well.”

In total, there are eleven bodies, all of them official SHIELD agents. Tony would need access to a database to make sure they’re valid but there is no reason to assume they aren’t. Which leaves two very important questions. One: Why on earth does SHIELD want him dead? Nothing in Tony’s memories hints at a similar occurrence in his past—future—other life. Sure, he isn’t particular chummy with the spy agency, but a death sentence seems a bit much, even by Fury’s standards. Two: How likely is it that they are gonna ask questions first and shoot later once they find their decimated agents? And that’s a rhetorical question.

Seems like Tony’s original plan—get to his old team mates, prove his identity, get into the best lab there is and fix this mess—isn’t so feasible anymore.

Staring down at the motionless bodies of the SHIELD agents, Tony knows with absolute certainty that he can’t contact the organisation, no matter how useful their resources might prove to be. Not without taking unpredictable risks and definitely not without letting Dead-Eyes take the fall for this bloodbath. It would be possible, Tony is sure he could work it out somehow, but he finds himself surprisingly averse to the idea.

By all means, it should be an easy choice. Knowing that his old friends, his self-made family are waiting for him in a home he’d built for them all, alive and well. The idea of getting that back, no matter the dangers, no matter what body he is in, is incredibly tempting. It’s a dream he has held onto for years, finally within his reach, and yet. His eyes find Dead-Eyes’ motionless shadow at his back for a moment and Tony feels his throat closing up and traitorous tears burning behind closed lids because _it has never been a choice at all_.

For the first time since waking up in a world two heads smaller than every enemy trying to kill him, Tony actually feels ten years old. Because right now he doesn’t want to save the world, doesn’t want to cry himself to sleep over a stupid cure he can’t seem to remember. He wants Jarvis. He wants his parents. He wants to hide under his bed forever.

He can’t go back to being that scared, ten year old ever again and _it’s not fair_.

Then Tony’s spine stiffens and narrow shoulders straighten with steely determination. “Soldier,” he calls out, the designation falling naturally from his lips. Watches as Dead-Eyes snaps to attention, dark, ever so intelligent eyes focusing on him. It helps, being the centre of someone’s focus. Grounds him in a way Tony had forgotten he could be anchored. “Destroy any evidence of our presence and let’s get out of here. We’re going dark.”

Because above all else, Tony Stark, at any age and in any form, is a futurist.

Tony doesn’t go back. He moves _forward_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little shorter than usual but I promise the next chapter will make up for that. Also, we've officially reached the end of the "introduction" period. All the pieces have been placed on the board. Now it's time to get this game started...
> 
> Please let me know what you think, and if you have any theories about where this story goes now I'd love to hear them! Have a relaxing Sunday everybody!


	6. Run

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Black Widow and Hawkeye are on the move, Tony and Dead-Eyes are on the run, and poor Brandon is in way over his head. He just doesn't know it yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by the talented [@folklejend](https://folklejend.tumblr.com/). All remaining mistakes are my own.

 

 

> _Reality is a fickle truth_.

.Near Zach’s B &B.

“Approaching last known location of STRIKE team 3,” Natasha Romanov announces, then promptly shuts off her official SHIELD-issued comm before anyone has the chance to pull her off a mission she technically hasn’t been assigned to yet. Knowing Fury—and Natasha makes it a point to know everyone who has authority over her—he’d have put anyone but her or Hawkeye onto this mission. Not until the mess with Iron Man has been cleaned up.

Too bad no Avenger has been chosen for their habit of staying on the sidelines. Or for obeying orders. Especially not when one of their own is missing.

And really, an unauthorised SHIELD mission with unknown objective just happens to slip through the cracks hours after Tony Stark, Iron Man, genius and the Avenger’s largest benefactor, goes missing during an ordinary mission? Natasha has spent too many years dancing in the grey areas between law and order to start believing in coincidences now.

Next to her, Barton swears suddenly and slams on the breaks. Raising his hands in defence when Natasha sends him a murderous glare he points towards a small, run-down building on the other side of the street. “We’re here.”

Her glare darkens. “Remind me to never let you behind a wheel again.”

“Promises, promises,” Barton sing-songs, unconcerned.

Natasha doesn’t bother with any threats to his person. She’s already out of the car and halfway across the street, Barton following, quietly cursing on her heels.

It’s reckless to approach a location of interest openly the way they do. Shots mean snipers are a possibility, and the thought of giving their position up easily makes Natasha’s skin crawl. She’s been trained better than this. Has trained others better than this.

But her instincts tell her to trust Barton’s judgement. She is good, but he is Hawkeye; he would have let her know if there were any vantage points to worry about.

They aren’t the only people lurking in the parking lot. The two police cars and yellow crime scene tape has attracted a crowd of the morbidly curious. A fact which is both convenient, because she and Hawkeye are less likely to draw attention to themselves, and inconvenient, because police means red tape—and worse, witnesses.

Perhaps it’s her training as a Black Widow or her long years in the service of a shadowy government organisation, but despite their occasional usefulness, Natasha despises witnesses. They are a pain far more often than they are helpful—and the more curious ones often end up as casualties.

With long, confident steps, Natasha approaches the yellow tape, ducks down under it without breaking her stride. A con is all about confidence, after all—about believing you belong with so much conviction that the people around you have no choice but to accept it as the truth.

“Ma’am!” a young officer calls out, wide-eyed, a nervous twitch in his fingers, “you can’t just-“

Natasha graces the man with a look of utter condescension that even Hill would be impressed by—it had been modelled after her own, glowing example—and fishes a badge out of her breast pocket with the casual air of someone who’s done this many, many times before.

Not giving the officer any time to process the information, she stalks past him, assured in the knowledge that Barton will deal with the guy—and that it will establish her status as the Queen Bitch of the crime scene. A title that has, unsurprisingly, been christened by Stark during one of their rare missions together.

Natasha’s lips tighten at the casual reminder of her missing colleague. She and Stark had their differences—they all had their differences—but he was an Avenger. An attack on him is an offence to her own skills, if nothing else. Natasha has never pretended to handle offences well.

Several steps behind her, Barton and the local officer are talking in low voices—or, more likely, Barton is interrogating the officer for more information. The twitchy officer’s partner eyes her hesitantly for a moment before focusing on his phone again, probably with his superior, given the conversation.

Blending them out for the time being, Natasha takes note of her surroundings and allows the scene of the crime to speak for itself. The officers had apparently erred on the side of caution and closed off the entire parking lot. A measure Natasha fully approves of.

The centre of the fight must have been in the corner furthest away from the main street—limited view for possible witnesses implies a planned attack rather than a surprise confrontation. The area is littered with broken glass, metal parts, a half-destroyed car, discarded weapons, shells, and blood.

The only things missing are the bodies. And there _should_ be bodies.

Natasha crouches down next to a puddle of blood with a frown. Someone has died right here, in this place. There is no way around it, not with the amount of blood on the ground. And the battered Ford Fiesta to her right looks like someone has been bodily thrown through the windscreen. Not the kind of move most people are capable off—and not something an ordinary SHIELD agent would be able to just shake off.

No. Someone has cleaned up the scene. After a violent battle with multiple losses, someone—or, more likely, multiple someones—had gotten rid off the bodies before the police showed up. That they have taken the time to do so tells Natasha many things, none of them good.

By the time Barton joins her, her face has settled into a mask of grim determination.

“So, apparently there are a lot of shoot-outs around this place,” Barton comments, his usual light-heartedness at odds with the sharp look in his eyes as he takes the scene in himself. “Owner called it in, right after the first shots were fired, or so he claims. The local police treated it as a routine check-up at first. Sherley says they got here about ten minutes after the dispatch, didn’t expect to find anything. They’ve been following protocol, not done too bad a job,” he finishes with a shrug.

Natasha hums. “What are you thinking?” she asks with a vague gesture towards the damaged parking lot, knowing Barton will understand the real question. _What do you see?_

Barton’s eyes narrow. She can almost hear him thinking everything over, trying to figure out what is troubling her. “For a fight between multiple people—possibly a whole STRIKE team and their opponents—the battle was very contained,” he murmurs after a moment.

 _Too contained_ , Natasha agrees silently, knows Barton is thinking the same. A confrontation like that should have spread out, but instead it seems like everything happened in the small space of three free parking spaces. But with a group this big, there should have been more, people who ran, people who got cut off from the focus point. How—

Barton pirouettes on his heels, a sharp, elegant movement that jerks Natasha out of her thoughts. He is scanning their surroundings expertly until they eventually settle on the roof of the small petrol station across the street.

When he turns back to face her, their long years of working together mean Natasha already knows what he’s going to say.

Barton doesn’t disappoint. “They had a sniper,” he says. Then adds grimly, “This wasn’t a fight, it was a slaughter.”

* * * * *

.On the streets of New York.

They lose the car in a backstreet ten minutes away from the B&B. And Tony would be lying if he said he wasn’t impressed by just how far Dead-Eyes could get them in that short amount of time. Despite the traffic.

He would have been cheering the guy on if he wasn’t already struggling to stay conscious as it was. One thing his memories definitely don’t lie about: getting shot sucks. A lot. Thankfully it’s just a flesh wound. Looking back, Tony suspects it was shock more than anything that caused him to faint. Well, and the memories, can’t forget about those.

In any case, Dead-Eyes makes for a decent field medic and Tony is confident he won’t lose the arm anytime soon. Of course, that’s a moot point if he’s going to be incarcerated in one of those secret prisons Fury used to deny he had for the rest of his life. So. Escaping SHIELD first, everything else second.

Which is easier said and done when you’re dealing with an organisation that makes Big Brother look like a joke program a bored teenager made in a fit. Luckily, Tony has just gotten years of dealing with SHIELD downloaded into his brain. They are powerful, no doubt about that. But as usual, they are not as powerful as they’d like to be.

And their biggest weakness, Tony thinks with the derision of someone who’s lived for years in a world where nations had no meaning, is that they’re an American organisation. For all that SHIELD fancied itself a sort of global security force and kept their headquarters in the air, they were still US-based. They had a network, of course they did, but here, on their home turf, they were almost unbeatable. Whereas missions outside the country always involved a lot of politics and red tape for a reason.

When a bunch of mutant kids had attacked the Washington Post headquarters, SHIELD had sent a veritable army—and the Avengers who were, of course, an army all on their own—to handle the issue. When the same happened less than four months later in Hungary, only Hawkeye and Black Widow had been sent in. Without backup.

It had never explicitly been said, but there was a very political reason why Captain America and Iron Man were used as little as possible beyond the national borders. Tony still remembers those three agonising weeks until Clint and Nat had made it back—and the state they had been in after that mission. More importantly, he remembers Steve’s expression when he saw them. In hindsight—or foresight, considering the whole time travel business—Tony wonders if maybe that was when Steve’s resentment against national barriers and politics first started.

The thought isn’t as bitter as it used to be, but it still burns, just a little.

Tony accepts the hoodie Dead-Eyes hands him—and where he’s gotten it from, Tony really doesn’t want to know—and discards his torn, bloody shirt without a thought. The black fabric will hide any blood that seeps through the makeshift bandage on his arm and hands, and Tony wonders briefly if Dead-Eyes is that brilliant even in his current state or just that lucky.

Dead-Eyes, too, makes to get out of his combat wear and into a casual sweatshirt, but Tony stops him before he has the chance. “Wait!” he calls out, a grin spreading over his face as he thinks some more over the brilliant idea he’s just had. “You’re gonna need that where we’re going.”

He hadn’t really considered it until now, but he is for all intents and purposes a kid, and that comes with a lot of limitations. Having a badass Winter Soldier at his back, on the other hand, will make dealings in the seedy underbelly of New York _so much_ easier.

Because step one of getting the hell out of SHIELD’s far-reaching shadow is leaving the country, asap. And for that, Tony and Dead-Eyes are gonna need papers. Really good, iron-clad papers. The kind Tony usually wouldn’t dare to leave to anyone but himself, if he wasn’t temporarily out-of-commission.

Luckily, he knows a guy.

* * * * *

.At MatchPatch.

Brandon Green, whose real name is neither Brandon nor Green, has watched all kinds of people walk through the doors of MatchPatch, the run-down bar with the dirt-cheap drinks that taste exactly as bad as they look. Some regulars come here looking for a quiet night away from their families or empty homes. Most of the others are here for him.

It’s not that he ever intended to set up shop in a place like this, but Brandon doesn’t like mixing his personal life with his professional one. Matter of fact, he doesn’t like to have a personal life at all. And despite the smell and the occasional raid, the place has grown on him—meaning he’ll have to dump it in a month or two—but Brandon has never liked to rush these types of things. Rushing always leads to mistakes and Brandon doesn’t do mistakes. His clientele certainly expects nothing less.

Generally, his customers tend to be two types of people: the ones who are in deep trouble and the ones who are said deep trouble.

The two men who have just entered the bar and are now walking towards his seat in the corner with self-assured strides are definitely of the later sort. Brandon feels a familiar thrill at the thought of making another deal with people much more dangerous than he could ever be, something akin to fascination that he has never succeeded in fully suppressing.

The clear leader of the two is surprisingly small, tiny even. His face is covered by a black hood, and in the dim light of the bar, only the weak glint where the light is reflected in his eyes tells Brandon that there really is a person watching him from the shadows.

The second man is standing right behind the first. Unlike his companion, he has made no effort to conceal his face, and for that alone, Brandon would have pegged him as the more dangerous one. The look of absolute murder in his cold eyes goes a long way of solidifying that impression.

The tiny leader tilts his head in silent command, a disturbingly childlike gesture that send a shudder down Brandon’s back for a whole other reason.

The aggressive-looking guy responds immediately. “Two passports,” he says with the gravelly voice of someone unused to talking regularly. “A child, Leo Grahams, 9 years old, and a man, Victor Grahams, 32 years old.” He slides a white cover over the table, continues with a simple, “These pictures.”

Brandon clears his throat. “I’m gonna need seven hours. And it ain’t gonna be cheap.” *1

The talker doesn’t even blink. “You have three. Cost is not an issue.”

As one, the two men turn around and leave the bar, leaving behind an incredulous Brandon who isn’t sure whether he has just been threatened or not.

* * * * *

.Parking Lot of Zach’s B&B.

“Is there-uhm-anything I can d-do to help you, Ma’am?” Officer Sherley asks hesitantly.

He is still twitchy and a little pale. It makes Natasha nervous. Twitchy in her line of work usually means guilty—or even _I’m about to draw a weapon_. She doesn’t like it. She likes it even less that he keeps calling her ‘Ma’am’.

Luckily for the officer, Barton intervenes, more than used to her moods. “Poor guy,” he murmurs as he watches Sherley walk back towards the small crowd of persistent onlookers. “I think these might’ve been his first bodies.”

At that, Natasha snaps around. “Bodies?” she asks, sharper than she means to.

“Sorry, I thought Welson told you.” Barton grimaces at the oversight. Or maybe her death glare. It’s hard to tell these days, since he’s become sort of immune to her fury, annoying as that is.

On the upside, at least that means he isn’t too busy running for his life to lead her around a white van near the back wall of the building. As it turns out, whoever was behind the attack hasn’t taken the time to get rid off the bodies—just to hide them out of plain sight. Admittedly a more efficient option.

Natasha stares at the methodically-placed bodies. They’ve been put on top of each other to fit into the small place behind the van, a mockery of a human pyramid. It should have been a more disturbing sight than it is, but then, Natasha isn’t exactly your average woman.

“Five of them have been killed by headshots, clean, definitely a sniper’s work,” Barton informs her without prompting. “Two broken necks, one _crushed_ throat,” the way he stresses it says Barton is most disturbed by that one, “one choked and two more shot in the heart, close range.”

Natasha is still staring with something approaching disbelief at the bodies when her phone rings. She doesn’t need to look at the display to know it’s Fury—and that he is honouring his name. Nothing pisses the man off more than an agent going off the rails. Especially when he hasn’t given the implied permission to do so.

The barked, “You better have some fucking results, Romanov!” that greets her when she answers is therefore unsurprising.

“Well, the good news is your missing STRIKE team won’t ever pull a mission behind your back again,” Natasha states.

Barton snorts. The dry sarcasm is a little hard to swallow—too soon, their bodies aren’t even cold yet—but she’s worked this job too long to hold it back.

Fury snarls in wordless rage. For all that the man hates disobedience, he really despises it when his disobedient agents turn up dead. “And the bad news?” he demands impatiently.

The question is only expected, but what little amusement Natasha has managed to find in the situation is drained at a dizzying speed. She exchanges a glance with Barton, reads the same indecision in his eyes. They could be talking about another victim, or worse, a hostage, but in their world things are rarely ever that simple.

“Romanov!” Fury snaps.

“There were twelve agents sent out today,” Natasha says, voice cold. “But we only have eleven bodies.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *1 I’m aware that this is most likely an impossible time-frame to obtain fake passports -- though I honestly have no idea what a real one would be. For the sake of this story, the aliases named are ones that Tony had already created at some point in his life, just in case. They’re basically “empty” identities that exist online because he created them, documents etc are all there. The only thing Brandon needs to do is get passports for identities that officially exist. Illegally, given the timeframe, but the internet lead me to believe that this is far more likely than creating a convincing fake passport.
> 
> What do you think, where will Tony and Dead-Eyes go now? And which conclusions will SHIELD come to?


	7. Rat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Natasha has a plan (and no, getting suspended wasn't part of it), HYDRA is as uncreative and predictable as always, and Tony meets someone who is either completely crazy or very dangerous. Or both.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by the brilliant [@folklejend](https://folklejend.tumblr.com/).

****.Somewhere in New York.

Watching Dead-Eyes cut a tracking device out of his left shoulder without so much as a twitch in his blank expression makes Tony feel sick. It’s for the man’s own good, technically. They can’t be found now, it wouldn’t end well for either of them. But commanding another man to cut himself open—and having said command followed without a moment’s hesitation—is a disturbing experience.

There’s a rush to it too, Tony can’t quite deny that. There lies a heady power in that kind of unquestioning obedience. But it’s a power that corrupts, no, _stains_ your soul, to the point where Tony wants to throw up just to get the crawling sensation out of his system.

Dead-Eyes is in no position to consent to such a measure. He’s in no position to save himself either. Until that changes—and Tony will have to look into that as soon as he finds the time, seriously, something about that blankness is just wrong—Tony will have to make the choices for them both.

Hopefully that will be enough.

Twenty minutes later, after both Dead-Eyes and Tony have been properly stitched up—and in Tony’s case, have their bandages exchanged for clean ones that were most definitely lifted from a convenience store down the street—Tony turns towards his companion with a fake-cheerful smile. “Let’s get those papers and get the hell out of here.”

And that’s exactly what they do.

* * * * *

.On the helicarrier.

Reading through the missing Agent Bianca White’s file leaves Natasha with an uncomfortable sense of déjà-vu. The picture of a fairly attractive woman in her mid-twenties with bleach-blonde hair and hazel eyes looks back at her, a hint of a smile on her lips that makes her look approachable but not eager.

Flipping through the pictures, logs, mission reports, and notes of superiors only intensifies the sinking sensation in Natasha’s gut. White wears little makeup and well-cut clothes, enough to accentuate but not enough to be memorable. Passes tests and exams satisfactorily, but never excels. Finishes her missions successfully, but never above expectations. Shows up at work neither too early nor too late. White appears to be, for all intents and purposes, a perfectly average employee.

Except for how people are rarely that fundamentally average in every aspect of their life. Natasha has seen files like this before, more often than she cares to count. She’s _been_ files like these. It’s the standard profile of any sleeper agent—because nobody gets overlooked like an average agent.

Natasha doesn’t know why it catches her by surprise. SHIELD is a high-ranking government organisation; of course there are moles. No organisation is made of fully devout members. If you find the right hook, almost everyone can be turned. Natasha should know.

“You think it’s a coincidence her entire team ended up dead today?” Barton asks sarcastically, eyes fixed on a picture of a traffic cam that proves White has been leaving the three-mile blackout radius the day Iron Man disappeared.

“There is no such thing as coincidences,” Natasha shoots back.

“Alright, let’s say White is a mole,” Hill states. “Could this woman really kill her entire team without sustaining any injuries serious enough to keep her down until the police arrived? Eleven against one aren’t odds you bet your life on lightly.”

Natasha turns towards Fury’s second, her expression frozen over with the arctic cold of a Russian winter. She still remembers little girls with pretty bows in their hair, thin elbows as sharp as the knives they wielded. “You’d be surprised what some women are capable of,” she states, words heavy with the unsaid, _what some children are capable of_.

Thankfully, Barton’s pointed interruption keeps her thoughts from walking down a dangerous path they rarely come back from. “We think there were at least two of them,” he explains. “There was a sniper on the rooftop of the gas station across the street. The location was a solid choice; he knew exactly where the STRIKE team would be. Of course, with an inside source, that would have been easy to anticipate—and if White is as good as we suspect, the whole confrontation was over in minutes.

“Of course, that’s all guesswork on our part right now.” Barton shrugs, a small grin on his lips that makes him look like a school boy who knows he’s just gotten away with a prank. “But I’m confident ballistics will support our theory.”

“Not complete guesswork,” Hill disagrees. Her frown has deepened with every word of Barton’s report, and in the shadows of the warm afternoon light, she looks decades older than she really is.

It’s the job, Natasha supposes. The job, and the people who choose it.

“I just got the report from one of the agents who questioned the owner, didn’t think it would be of much importance until now. Apparently, besides two families and a couple of backpacking tourists, he’s only rented out one room—to a man he described as ‘shady’ but refused to explain why.” Hill’s scowl says very clearly what she thinks of that. “He swears the guy was alone but rented a double. The agent checked the room but it was clean. And by clean, I mean completely clean. No sign that anyone ever stayed there.”

Which meant professionals. Unsurprising—you don’t send grunts after an elite strike force if you mean to put them down for real—but always good to have it confirmed.

“Alright.” Hill rubs her temples with a sign. A gesture Natasha recognises as a useless attempt to stave off an oncoming migraine. She sympathises. Sleep deprivation, dead agents, moles, and a mysteriously vanished Iron Man is not a combination anyone enjoys. Especially not Stark once she’s through with him for pulling a fucking disappearance act on her.

But as fast as Hill seems to sink into herself, she pulls herself together again. “Rhyston, Cole, get me everything on White. And I mean everything, not this little press file we’ve got here. If she’s dirty, I want to know it and I want to know it _yesterday_! Summer, the intel on the STRIKE team! Barton, drop the fucking smirk before I drop you! Fury wants to kill you in person, I wouldn’t let him wait much longer. That goes for you too, Romanov!”

That at least gets rid of Barton’s smirk. Only for it to be replaced by a pout. “Me?” he exclaims dramatically, “what did I do?”

Hill raises an unimpressed eyebrow. “Besides running off with Romanov without having been cleared for active duty or been assigned a mission to investigate the slaughter of a STRIKE team?”

Barton waves the clear accusation off like he always does. It’s… comfortable. This banter between them, the easy with which Barton pisses off everyone around him. Ever since Loki—Well. Suffice to say, it’s taken a while for Natasha to see this side of him again. She’s missed it.

Still, even Barton has enough sense not to leave Fury waiting for long.

Right as they’ve reached the door of the conference room, Hill stops them one last time. And by the gleeful smirk on her lips, Natasha knows exactly what she’s going to say.

“By the way,” if possible, the smirk on Hill’s lips widens, “you’re both off active duty until the psych department clears you, what with your emotional investment and all. Don’t forget to hand in your badges and your weapons before you leave. And I mean _weapons_ , not just the guns, Romanov!”

Slamming the door into her face would be immature, so Natasha lets Barton do it for her.

* * * * *

.Very high up in the air.

Flying an airplane with an emotionless killing machine playing your father is an experience alright, Tony concludes forty-five minutes into the flight. How they made it through security, he’ll never know. Well, he knows how he did it, Tony just doesn’t know how Dead-Eyes accomplished the same. One minute he was by Tony’s side, the next he was on the other side of the security lane.

Tony wisely chose not to question it—better than being taken into custody for a freaking metal arm, that’s for sure.

Really, the whole plan hinges on nobody paying them any attention whatsoever, because from what Tony has seen of Dead-Eye’s acting skills, he doubts they could fool a first grader. As it turns out though, his worry is unfounded.

Sure, Dead-Eyes looks like he’s been cut out of an ice block, but he’s still handsome—maybe even more so for it—and that helps a lot. Tony mentally pats himself on the back for having decided the guy needed a shave. Then pats himself literally on the back because he’s a kid, nobody’s gonna care. Except the nice lady next to him, who appears a little frightened by Dead-Eyes—clearly she’s got good instincts—and keeps asking him if everything is alright. But all it takes is a teary-eyed explanation about how his mom just died and how _daddy is just sad but trying not to be_ , and that’s taken care of too.

It also gets him chocolate from the soft-hearted flight assistant. Being a child is _awesome_.

* * * * *

.Secret Research Facility.

For the first time since the mission to take down Stark went off the rails, the commander is silent. It’s a deadly, all-encompassing silence nobody around him is suicidal enough to break. The agents present are hyper-aware of the fact that someone is about to die. And in his current mood, the commander is unlikely to care about silly particularities like friendly fire.

On the screen, five dots blink steadily as they move further and further away—from their own location and each other. Which, considering four of them are supposed to be in the same body, isn’t very reassuring.

The commander takes a deep breath, causing the minions closest to him to wince in anticipation. But he doesn’t yell. His voice, when he speaks, is low and hoarse. “Get a team to each place but have them prepared for a trap. Recapturing the Asset has utmost priority, do you hear what I’m saying?”

“Yes, sir,” the minions chorus obediently.

“Er-,” under the force of the commander’s glare, the inexperienced minion who’s dared to speak up falls silent immediately.

“What?” the commander snarls.

“I-I was just—wondering about White, sir,” the terrified minion stutters.

The commander blinks, surprised. Then, slowly, a grin spreads over his face. “Dispatch a team for her too. I want her body spread all over whatever hole the useless rat’s trying to hide in.”

“Y-yes, sir.”

* * * * *

.On a small island.

Despite his being a recognised genius, Tony hadn’t actually thought their grand escape plan through. If he had—instead of, say, point at the next flight possible and demand tickets—he might not have chosen the Bahamas.

Amidst all the tourists in their t-shirts and shorts, Dead-Eyes and Tony in their black, long-sleeved clothes stick out like two sore thumbs. Besides, the Bahamas are—well. Objectively speaking, they’re nice, probably. Tony mostly sees sun, a bright blue sky, and sand, which, yay. Not like he hasn’t stared at the same fucking sand for nine eternal years. Granted, the air hurt to breathe and the sky looked a lot less natural. It’s not really the same at all, rationally Tony knows that. Too bad rationality has little to do with it.

It’s the feeling of the light breeze against his skin, the way tiny corns of sand dance in it, the heavy warmth that makes his clothes stick to his skin, how Dead-Eyes lingers by his side, slightly towards the left—because the right is reserved, a place that may not be currently filled but has always been, will always be, taken—it’s familiar, so much so the weight of it settles into his bones, builds up the pressure on each and every one of them.

“The position is not secure,” Dead-Eyes hisses, the first words he’s spoken since they got on the plane.

His warning, though helpful, comes too late. By the time Tony makes out a thin, elderly woman who is watching them with narrowed eyes, they are too close to make a clean getaway without arousing suspicion. Especially considering the airport is really just landing field with one small building next to it.

“We’re gonna have to steal a boat,” Tony thinks hysterically as the woman approaches them with small but determined steps. Her gaze doesn’t waver once, and, frankly, it’s starting to creep him out.

She doesn’t pull a machine gun on them at least, but then Tony might have preferred that. Instead she smiles, slow and easy, like a mother welcoming her son after years of absence. Her teeth are a brilliant white, and when she hugs Tony— _hugs_ him, what the hell?!—she smells of the sea and wet wood and something spicy he can’t identify.

“You have been missed,” the woman says when she finally pulls back. Though she still refuses to let go of his shoulders. “You _are_ missed.”

There’s a gleam in her eyes that reminds Tony of the adoration on the faces of little kids when they got to meet Iron Man, for a time. It’s tempered by shrewdness and wisdom that only comes with experience, but the core, the core remains the same.

“I-“ For once in his life Tony has absolutely no idea what to say. He doesn’t know this woman, doesn’t have any memory of her. Yet he doesn’t remember SHIELD trying to kill him either, does he? And what about that thought is bothering him so much?

“Do not worry, young warrior, I shall keep my silence.” The woman’s smile twists, just a little, an edge of cunning that sharpens her appearance into something beautiful. “Your search shall soon find its end.”

Perfect. Just perfect. Ominous warnings from a strange woman playing oracle. Just what Tony needs to make this bloody mess any more complicated.

“Thank you?” he tries to say, though it comes out more as a question.

“Oh, I wouldn’t dare to place a debt on you!” the woman exclaims, startled. “Your sacrifice cannot be repaid nor will it be forgotten. We will ensure as much; it is the least we can do.”

Tony smiles awkwardly, a shallow imitation of what used to be his press smile. Like a jacket he’s grown out of—hasn’t grown into yet. “I appreciate the gesture,” is what he settles on—instead of the _What the freaking hell are you talking about?_ he desperately wants to ask. But he can’t. Not if this strange lady actually knows—no. The thought alone sends shivers of dread down Tony’s spine. It’s not possible. Whoever she is, whatever she is, she can’t know what Tony’s done. It’s impossible. You can’t know a future that never happened.

Can you?

The woman takes one of his small hands between hers. Tony has to give it to her; she’s got a stronger grip than he would have expected. And she’s still looking at him like _that_. “Don’t worry, you will find the answers you seek on the grounds of the bloodless children,” she says gently, like that’s supposed to calm Tony down.

“O-kay,” he accentuates. Maybe for once this doesn’t mean anything at all. Maybe this woman is just—a nutcase. Or a very talented grifter. If only he could be so lucky. “I’ll just, err, go there then, I guess.”

Tony carefully but decisively detangles himself from the woman’s grip. Screw suspicions, he’s gonna run the second he gets her off him, Dead-Eyes in tow. They’re gonna steal a boat, hide on one of the islands and figure out a new plan, far, far away from this creepy woman and her damn knowing eyes.

Just as he’s finally freed himself and given the woman one last nod of acknowledgement, she reaches out lightening fast and grasps his forearm. “Do not let the darkness destroy you again,” the woman warns, her voice deeper now, and all the more damning for it. “There will be no other chance.”

Tony swallows, caught in the woman’s bottomless gaze. Suddenly he is uncomfortably aware that she hasn’t spared Dead-Eyes a glance, not even once looked into his direction. Has been pointedly ignoring him. _You wouldn’t be the first one I killed myself,_ he remembers, the echo of a man he used to know.

“I won’t,” he agrees and wishes he’d know what exactly it is he’s promising.

It seems to be enough to convince the woman at least, because finally she lets him go, and with one last glance towards her, Tony gestures for Dead-Eyes to follow him and high-tails it as far away from the woman as he can manage. With any luck, he’ll be able to lose her in the crowd around the bus stops. Tony doesn’t look back, but he feels the weight of her eyes on him for a long time afterwards.

* * * * *

.New York.

Natasha can tell Barton wants to say something, but he keeps his silence until they’ve exited the rental car and walk towards the entrance of Avengers Tower.

“You’re not as furious about the suspension as I thought you’d be.” He doesn’t turn his head towards her and his lips are barely moving. Both are habits designed to make her feel more comfortable, less put on the spot. It still still strikes her out of nowhere sometimes, the knowledge how well Barton knows her.

Natasha looks straight ahead as she responds, eyes focusing on the guards and hidden cameras Stark has once pointed out to her—and she is sure there are more than she’s aware of; she’s already found four of them. “You know me,” Natasha retorts with a lightness she doesn’t feel. “I know how to keep myself busy. _Without_ driving my teammates insane.”

Barton rolls his eyes at the half-hearted dig.

“Besides,” she continues after only a brief moment of hesitation, “Fury can handle dead agents. I don’t need to get caught up in the bloodshed.”

At that, Barton whistles. “There’s a first for everything.”

It earns him a punch against his upper arm, hard enough to almost make him lose his balance.

“I checked the agents’ reports from the B&B,” Natasha mutters, quieter now. It’s unlikely they have any eyes or ears on them, SHIELD is overworked as it is, but she hasn’t survived as long as she has by taking unnecessary chances. “There’s no way Stark was kept there; they lack the equipment to keep him down. Only way he was in that building is if he’s already dead, and why drag a body across the city?”

“So you’re saying an Avenger gets kidnapped and a STRIKE team is taken out within the same twenty-four hours, and those incidents are entirely unrelated?” Barton doesn’t even try to keep the disbelief out of his voice.

They cross the lobby and enter one of the private elevators before Natasha turns towards him with a scowl. “Of course not. There’s no such thing as coincidences. All I’m saying is Stark wasn’t held there. Now, there might be a connection or there might not be, but we don’t have time to play the guessing game. Whoever has him, we need to find him fast, and chasing a traitor isn’t gonna cut it.”

Barton nods, like they’ve been on the same page all along. Maybe they have. “In other words, let Fury worry about White while we use our newly acquired free time to save Tony’s ass before he has the chance to blow everything up. I like it.”

Natasha snorts. “You just like the thought of getting to blow things up yourself.”

Barton smirks and tellingly makes no move to deny it. But then, she didn’t expect him to.

“Welcome at Avengers’ Tower, Miss Romanov, Agent Barton,” the cool voice of JARVIS interrupts them. He still hasn’t forgiven Natasha for her subterfuge whilst she played Pott’s assistant. “Captain Rogers is expecting you in the common room.”

“Let’s go find our wayward genius!” Barton cheers and takes off as soon as the elevator doors open. “Last one in the common room doesn’t get any laser guns!”

Natasha watches him run off with a blank expression. “One day, I’m going to kill that man.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm honestly in awe of the response I've been getting for this story. Thank you all for reading, commenting and leaving me kudos - you're support helps me continue this project! There was a little less Tony and Bucky in this chapter, but I hope you enjoyed SHIELD's perspective in things - and I promise, the next chapter will have a lot of Tony :)
> 
> Also, while a lot of this story is about Tony and Bucky running around, they will have allies, some of whom will soon-ish (within the next 10 chapters) join the regular chast. Now some roles have already been cast, but there are still slots I haven't filled, and I'd like to hear your opinion on them :)
> 
> Who would you like to see as one of Tony's (possibly reluctant) allies?  
> -Brock Rumlow  
> -Wanda Maximoff  
> -Pietro Maximoff  
> -Loki  
> -Tiberius Stone  
> -Someone else (tell me in the comment section!)
> 
> Alright, that's enough babbling from me for now. I hope you liked this chapter, and feel free to leave your thoughts and feedback in the comment section! Thank you for being awesome readers :)


	8. Restlessness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Clint is frustrated, Natasha is frustrated, Steve is very frustrated, and the three of them handle it as well as you'd expect them to, Jarvis is sarcastic, and Tony wants to take things slow for the first time in his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by the talented [@folklejend](https://folklejend.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Woah, I seriously didn't expect so many responses to my question at the end of the last chapter. Thank you all for answering, some of you brought up some very interesting points I definitely have to consider! But because some of you had some very clear opinion on whom I shouldn't include, I want to make one thing clear: ALL of these will at some point become a part of the story. The question is just how exactly they'll act and how big their role is gonna be. And you've definitely helped me decide a couple of things, thank you!
> 
> Now please enjoy the next chapter :)

.Avengers Tower, New York.

Cap’s training. Again. If you can call systematically destroying their private gym “training,” that is. Clint winces as he watches yet another reinforced punching bag sail through the air and hit the wall with a loud snap. At this rate, they’ll be running out of bags for Steve to demolish before the week is over.

Suffice to say, Steve hadn’t taken the disappearance of one of his team mates well. Clint has a suspicion that the whole situation hits a little too close to home. It hasn’t been long since Cap’s lost his entire team—to old age and a certain train none of them talk about—or at least, it hasn’t been long for him. Not that Clint is stupid enough to say something, but he knows Natasha suspects the same.

It’s why neither of them has breathed a word to Steve about it. That, and the fact that even Clint, who likes to think of himself as fairly level, is about ready to join the guy.

To say that their search has been fruitless would be an understatement. And there’s nothing more frustrating than hitting a wall in the middle of a mission. Especially when a man’s—Tony’s—life may well depend on it. Clint knows the statistics as well as any field agent. It’s true that the first twenty-four hours of a kidnapping are the most important; they set the tone for the investigation—and finding the victim after becomes increasingly unlikely.

Of course, they aren’t talking about just anyone. They’re talking about Tony Stark, who blew his way out of a freaking cave in the desert. It’s the main reason none of them are willing to give up. That, and in their line of business, you don’t assume someone’s death. No one is dead unless you’ve gotten hard proof—and sometimes not even then.

But none of that changes the fact that they don’t have a clue about Tony’s whereabouts. And when Clint says “not a clue,” he means not a clue. As in nada. As in not a single one.

Staring at the walls and screens covering the common living room area, at all the data they’ve amassed that still isn’t telling them a freaking thing, Clint rubs a tired hand over his eyes. He’s been going over the same security footage for the fifth time and has no results to show for.

“JARVIS?” he questions without much hope. The AI has been quiet since its creator’s disappearance, but Clint is pretty confident that it would speak up the moment it caught anything regarding Tony that they’ve missed. If there’s one thing Clint has learned after months of jumping off buildings and having Iron Man catch him without fail, it’s to trust in Tony’s creations. They’ve yet to let him down.

“I apologise, sir, no new information has come to light since you last asked two minutes and forty-seven seconds ago,” the AI responds with a sarcastic drawl that sounds disturbingly real. Clint loves it.

“I know, J-man, I know, sorry,” he mumbles. Clint isn’t sure exactly where the “artificial” part of the intelligence ends—knowing Tony, probably not where it should—and he doesn’t need to be a tech-whisperer to know that JARVIS is doing everything in his power to find Tony. Pressuring the guy, system, whatever, isn’t going to help anyone.

At the tip-tap sound of Nat’s high-heeled boots against the floor, Clint jerks around hopefully. Unlike himself, Natasha tends to get her best results when she’s pissed. It makes her more vicious, causes her to use sources agents with more scruples wouldn’t, makes her dig deeper until she hits a bone.

Her hair and makeup is impeccable as always, but they don’t quite cover the dark circles below her eyes, nor the tension around the corners of her lips. No success then, at least not yet.

“Alright, this is disturbing.”

“What do you mean?” The question comes from across the room, where Cap walks in, still wearing his training shorts and covered in sweat. Clint would whistle and make a crack about those abs, were he in a better mood. Right now though, all he can muster up his a shrug.

“All of this.” Clint gestures at the maps. “I mean, there is nothing here. It’s not that we don’t know how to interpret the data, it’s that there is no data to begin with. How do you kidnap anyone, let alone Tony Stark, in the middle of New York City without leaving a trace?” he exclaims. “I get Afghanistan, okay, but this is New York. Even with the electrical shortcut, there should still be something, anything, outside that radius. People don’t just disappear. We’ve got SHIELD, we’ve got the three of us, and we’ve got the best AI we know, and still we got  _ nothing _ ? Nobody is that good!”

“Correction,” Natasha interrupts with a displeased frown, “nobody was that good. Doesn’t mean it’s impossible. So I suppose the question becomes, who do we know who might be capable of such a feat?”

A heavy pause—no, hesitation. Clint grimaces. When Natasha hesitates, it never means anything good.

“Or  _ what. _ ” she finishes grimly.

* * * * *

.Somewhere on a tiny blot of land in between lots of small islands.

It’s surreal, Tony decides. The last two days have been nothing but surreal.

When he had thought about how his trip to the past would go, he had never imagined it would be like this. Granted, he hadn’t thought about it much at all. At the time, thinking about it had inevitably lead to excitement, to doubt, to heartbreak. Because the thought that this insane idea might actually work—it had always been a little too good to be true. Tasted a little too much of  _ hope _ .

Still. Sometimes, when his mind had begun to wander, Tony remembers imagining it. No retelling of the story as it should have gone, no rewritten scenes, nothing concrete. Just… flashes. Of a general idea that had been all the more powerful for it. The thought of seeing Pepper again, her face unblemished by the attack that had cost them Happy. The faint sensory memory of being pulled into a hug by Rhodey. The warmth, the  _ security _ , in fighting side by side with the deadliest people he knew—

Tony frowns. This, how it all actually went down, it’s not how he’s ever pictured it. It’s not how he would have wanted things to go. But his wants haven’t mattered in forever, and as much as Tony would like to gripe and whine, the truth is, he’s fine with it. He’s fine with running around like a headless chicken, without resources or a plan, moving further and further away from the people for whom he’s sacrificed everything. Because they’re  _ alive _ . He gets to fall asleep at night, knowing they’re here, in this world, drawing breath, and that’s more than he’s had in a long a time.

“That’s all nice and well, darling, but it’s not gonna get shit done,” a sarcastic voice drawls in the back of Tony’s head. It sounds disturbingly like Vic. Damn, but he misses that woman. “How much more time are you gonna waste lounging on a bloody beach watching waves crash before you finally get your arse moving?”

And, well, imaginary voice or not, she’s got a point.

Despite his unnerving encounter with that strange old lady, the past two and a half days have been  _ peaceful _ , of all things. It’s a foreign sounding description, the kind that itches because there has to be something wrong with it, you just can’t put your finger on it. It’s strange enough to freak Tony out, if he allows himself to ponder these thoughts for too long. So he doesn’t.

Really, he can’t afford to. Being on the move is all well and good—and Tony is well aware that he’s on a clock—but a race is hard to win when you don’t even know where the finishing line is. That’s never stopped Tony before, of course, but he can still be smart about it. It’s kind of his thing, being a genius and all.

_ “Yeah, well, all those smarts didn’t make a damn difference in the end, did they? You know, Stark, if you really were as clever as you think you are, you’d have found a way to stop this. You’d have found a way to  _ end _ this.” _

_ “I did end it!” _

_ "Did you really? Or was there just nobody left to die in your stead?” _

Tony flinches. The pain these words bring is distant, a wound that’s already scabbed over. He rubs a small hand over his forehead, a useless attempt to soothe the echo of an old hurt.

Footsteps to his right have Tony angle his body reflexively towards Dead-Eyes—an instinct he doesn’t completely understand but is slowly getting used to. Dead-Eyes is just there. A silent presence by his side that only leaves when Tony tells him to.

Should be wrong, probably. Messed up, certainly. Yet, at the same time, it’s not. It feels normal, natural even, and the more Tony gets used to all these memories, the more he understands why. Dead-Eyes is safe because Dead-Eyes is one of—perhaps even the only thing—that hasn’t changed.

_ “Who’s your watchdog, anyways?” _

_ Stark blinks, follows the woman’s gaze towards the corner of the ruined farmhouse-turned-bar, where Barnes lurks. He’d call the man out on his dramatic act, except Stark is pretty sure the man doesn’t know how to do anything but lurk. It’s his natural state. _

_ “Old friend,” he answers with a shrug. _

_ That piques the woman’s interest, like he knew it would. “There is no such thing as friends,” she states, her eyebrows raised in disbelief. _

_ “Oh, I don’t know about that.” Stark smirks, dares her to speak against him. “First time I met him, I tried to kill him. What better way to start a relationship?” _

_ “You must have lots of old friends then,” the woman mutters drily. Shakes her head. Then, “What changed?” _

_ Stark lifts his eyes from where he’s been watching Barnes glare a couple of wannabe Cleaners into submission. “Hm?” _

_ “What happened, I don’t know, the second time you met? How did you become friends?” There’s a curiosity in the woman’s voice that’s hard to find these days. Something that goes beyond the steely determination to survive. It makes Stark hope she’ll live through this, even as his gut tells him she won’t. _

_ “Oh, the second time?” he answers despite himself, all charm and nonchalance. “The second time I met him, he was already dead.” _

Tony blinks the fake smile and honeyed sweetness away, but the scene is… sticky, like gum stubbornly clinging to your hair, and it takes him a long moment before the sight of dirty tables and war-hardened people fades into the bright hues of endless blue that surround them.

Dead-Eyes is watching him, expressionless as always. He’s wearing long, sand-coloured pants and a washed-out shirt, and despite the soft clothes and metal arm hidden under a thick bandage that Tony had spent the better part of the morning covering it with, he still looks—well. Like you’d want him on your side in a knife fight.

_ There’s no hiding the jagged edges when that’s all that’s left of a person _ , Tony thinks. Remembers thinking. Whatever.

This is exactly why he’s still here. Why he’s spent the past two days clinging to Dead-Eyes’ flesh hand, pickpocketing tourists and generally doing his best to get lost in the crowd. Why he watches little kids splashing in the water with shrieks of delight instead of breaking into the best lab he can get his hands on.

Sure, the knowledge isn’t trying to tear his head open from the inside out, and, yeah, Tony has a fairly good idea of what happened in that messed up future of his. None of that changes the fact that he got a good decade worth of memories downloaded into his brain within a couple of hours. That kind of transfer—he’d speculated about the consequences, they all had. As it turns out, Strange was right. The human mind can’t handle that kind of data input. Honestly, Tony is sort of glad the sorcerer isn’t here right now. He’d be  _ unbearable _ if he knew, the bastard.

Thankfully, he was also wrong; Tony has yet to go insane from the overload. At least, he assumes he hasn’t. He’d have noticed that, right? Right.

Anyways, the closest Tony has come to describe the weird sensation of knowing-but-not is to compare it to a software update on a computer. The data is all there, but it takes the system time to sort through it and store the relevant information in the right places. And the system—it’s not dumb, it learns from its mistakes, but it still makes them. It misfiles certain data bits, can’t properly transfer some, has to change pieces, even loses some of the information. It learns, but it’s an ongoing process.

As a programmer himself, the inaccuracies rankle him a little, but computers aren’t meant to be human; the comparison is bound to fall short. That doesn’t make it useless.

So, yes, Tony remembers. He knows who he is, he knows why he is where he is, and even though he currently can’t recall what his exact mission is, he gets the general idea. Save the cheerleader, save the world, the usual.

But until the flashbacks—and that’s not quite the right word for it, but Tony can’t think of a better term—stop overwhelming him every time a new memory is triggered, he needs to remain on standby. Despite the restlessness twisting and snarling under his skin, like a second layer that wants to break through. Tony can rush many things, but he can’t rush this. He can’t rush his own mind, not when he needs all the information he has before he can make a plan.

He only has one shot at this. He’ll have to get it right on the first try.

So he’ll wait. With gritted teeth and nervously drumming fingers, but he’ll wait.

It’s a decision that goes against everything Tony believes in, but so far it has payed off. They’ve spent the past two and a half days slowly traveling from one island to the next. Always on small tour boats, mingling with other tourists. With their borrowed clothes and the meticulously placed bandages on Dead-Eyes’ arm, they don’t do too bad of a job at blending in. Tony has settled on a house fire to explain the “injuries,” as well as his “mother’s tragic death.”

Movements like these, where everything is paid in cash and two American tourists get lost in the crowd, are as good as untraceable. It’s enough to appease the restlessness, for now. And well, it’s helping. The clear sky, the see-through water, the gentle breeze. The heat and the sand under his feet that has finally stopped sending cold chills down his spine.

With every passing hour, every deep breath Tony takes, the events of the past—future—years become clearer. He recalls, with a clarity only life-changing moments hold, the desperation that fuelled him, controlled him, ever since he made it back out of that damn wormhole. The deep-seated certainty that they were on the brink of another war, one humanity was woefully unprepared to handle. The frustration and clawing fear when no one  _ listened _ .

Tony had been right, but that revelation hadn’t brought him any satisfaction. Had come much too late to save the family he had already lost. They had been unprepared for Thanos’ attack, broken and scattered and divided. Of course, that hadn’t stopped them. Enemies and friends and strangers alike, they had risen to Thanos’ challenge and they had answered it the only way they knew how to: they  _ fought _ .

And maybe they hadn’t won—it had never felt like a victory; too many good people had been lost to them, too many innocents had died—but they had  _ survived _ . That should have been the end of it. It should have been enough.

Six months later, whilst Tony was still practicing a genuine smile in the mirror, Namibia had been razed to the ground. An entire country was wiped off the map of Earth from one moment to the next, and nobody knew how.

The timeline after that gets a bit spotty, mostly because Tony himself doesn’t know exactly how things went. Too much happened too quickly, and there weren’t enough people around studying the phenomena and collecting data for them to tell how things proceeded. But, from what he remembers, there had been health hazard warnings going out from places like Monaco, Singapore, and Macao before people had time to panic—and then they  _ did _ panic.

Sand grains rub against Tony’s palms as he curls his fingers into tight fists. From the way he thinks about it, it could have been a sickness of some kind, maybe even a plague. All these words swirling around in his mind, about a cure, about infections, health and aggressive viruses—it fits.

Doesn’t mean it makes sense though. An illness that kills, a new one, maybe even biological warfare, alright. Tony can easily imagine the devastation it caused. But more than people dying, he remembers fighting, remembers living with guns and knives strapped to his every body part, remembers being covered in blood more often than not.

There is more to it than a mere virus, and yet, for some reason, the answers refuse to come. Are silenced by an impenetrable bubble that keeps parts of his newfound knowledge huddled away, beyond his reach. Tony, being Tony, prods and pushes and shoves, but so far the bubble hasn’t given an inch.

Half the time Tony thinks he should be glad for that small mercy. Maybe he doesn’t  _ want _ to know how bad things had really gotten. Maybe he doesn’t want to remember all those terrible acts that tore him apart, turned him into a man capable of—

His delicate sensibilities don’t matter though. He can’t allow them to matter, can’t spare himself from whatever minefield lies hidden in his own mind. Peace and innocence are luxuries Tony can’t afford right now. Not when knowledge is the only advantage he has.

Tony reaches out and isn’t surprised in the least when Dead-Eyes meets him halfway, having already gotten used to being led around on Tony’s hand. It’s part of the cover, but Tony isn’t entirely sure Dead-Eyes realises this. Realises that hand-holding would be frowned upon if they weren’t playing a family. Actually, Tony has no clue exactly how much of the world Dead-Eyes even processes.

Dead-Eyes isn’t stupid, of that Tony has no doubt. There’s a calculating intelligence in those blue eyes, an awareness that serves as much as a weapon as everything else Dead-Eyes wields. But social norms? Human interaction? Hell, even prejudices of some sort? Tony hasn’t seen any of it, and that’s just not normal. Of course, Dead-Eyes always was the exception, wasn’t he?

_ “You found him,” Natasha states, an air of disbelief around her. “After all this, you finally caught up with Bucky Barnes.” _

_ Tony turns back towards their prisoner. Stares at the man’s blank face, an eerily familiar emptiness in his eyes. Tony has seen it many times before, too often not to recognise it on first sight. And really, there is only one answer he can give her. _

_ “No. I didn’t.” _

_ Natasha purses her lips. “No,” she agrees. “You didn’t.” Then. “We’ll have to test him.” _

_ Tony doesn’t even flinch. “I know.” No exceptions. It’s a rule for a reason—this they learned the hard way. _

_ “Are you prepared to do what is needed if he fails?” _

_ It’s a question Tony wishes Natasha hadn’t asked, though he understands why she needs to know. Guilt is a powerful motivator, and they don’t have any room for errors. _

_ He looks her straight in the eyes when he replies. “Yes.” It’s not the first time they’re lying to each other. Or themselves, for that matter. _

Tony swallows the sudden urge to throw up. An ill sensation that makes no sense, doubly so because this is hardly the worst memory he’s received. Certainly not the bloodiest.

He clings to Dead-Eyes’ flesh hand uselessly, as Vic’s voice rings mercilessly in his head.  _ “Go on, take your time figuring out that sick, co-dependant mess you call a relationship. I’m just gonna lie here and quietly bleed out in the mud while you get your bloody act together!” _

Tony can’t remember the exact fight where it happened, there were too many to tell, but he remembers Vic’s acidic words clearly because even riding the high of a battle won and covered in entrails he didn’t care to identify, they had made him snort with laughter. Vic had never done anything quietly in her life. She had also had a knack of getting her point through Tony’s thick head.

The situation is a different one now, and the truth is, there is no telling what Vic would say if she were here now, because she isn’t. Vic, wherever she is, doesn’t even know Tony. Will never have to know him, if he has anything to say about it. Will never have to kill her own mother, will never carry that wounded, shattered look in her eyes.

If he can keep that from happening, then it will be worth it. That Tony is sure of. But he’s going to be smart about this, not gonna take any unnecessary risks. No half-assed preparations and improvisation.

“Two more days,” he says out loud, even though he’s really addressing the voice inside his head that sounds so much like Vic. It’s a plea and a promise in one. “Two more days, and then I’ll start.”

He should have known that Fate would take that as a challenge.

* * * * *

Tony drags Dead-Eyes onto a small tour boat—because a whole island inhabited by iguanas sounds intriguing, and because he feels too restless to stay in the same place any longer. The boatsman is a small man with a booming voice who keeps ruffling Tony’s hair, much to his annoyance.

He would have sworn Dead-Eyes was amused by the treatment, except when he catches Dead-Eyes staring, it isn’t with the familiar smirk he half expects to see. Instead, Dead-Eyes wears a puzzled expression, a furrow between his eyebrows that says he’s struggling to work something out.

Tony decides he really doesn’t want to know. Thankfully there’s an uncomfortable sensation distracting him, like a small weight pressing gently down on the back of his neck. It’s a feeling Tony recognises from dozens of missions, that prickling knowledge dancing on his nerve endings, telling him he is being  _ watched _ .

It should be ridiculous. There are only twelve other passengers on their tiny boat, none of whom carry a concealed weapon larger than a switchblade. A group of college students, half of whom are currently posing for Instagram pictures. Two pairs who look sickeningly romantic—seriously, all these forehead kisses and soft smiles are going to give Tony hives. And three older men who haven’t stopped arguing about some foreign policy since they’ve stepped onto the deck. None of them look like an assassin waiting to strike. Of course, the whole point of being an assassin is that you never look like one, so that’s a cold comfort.

Tony leans over the railing of the boat for a moment, pretending to take in the beautiful sight of an endless horizon, only occasionally disrupted by a tiny blot of land. When he turns to look at Dead-Eyes over his shoulder, he uses the position to observe everyone else. The boatsman is explaining something to one of the college students, all wild gestures and deep-throated laugh. The younger pair is making out full-time, and—there.

One of the students is standing slightly separated from her friends, gaze fixated on them. Or, well, not  _ them _ , Tony realises after a moment of carefully suppressing the urge to tell Dead-Eyes to shoot now, ask questions never. She’s watching Dead-Eyes, not him.

Some of the tension in his back uncoils at the realisation. Alright, maybe he’s a little paranoid. Not that anyone can blame him—it’s not paranoia when you’ve got an entire secret spy organisation on your ass—but killing some kid for eyeing up his unfairly attractive shadow might be a slight overreaction. Even by his standards.

Despite the stress and general uneasiness though, the trip is absolutely worth it. Tony hadn’t given iguanas much thought before, but they’re  _ so freaking cool. _ And loud. Who knew reptiles could make so much noise? Two of the college girls make a show of shuddering in disgust, which Tony doesn’t get at all. Iguanas aren’t slimy or glittery—they look like miniature  _ dragons _ .

“I want one,” Tony breathes in reverence.

He’s watching a couple of them rhythmically wiping their heads, and he can almost hear “Highway to Hell” playing in the back of his head.

“Understood,” Dead-Eyes replies with a small incline of his head.

It’s pure luck that Tony pays enough attention to him to reach out and grab Dead-Eyes’ arm before he can jump overboard, probably to catch Tony an iguana. Awesome as that would be, it would probably get them into trouble with the local authorities.

“Not that I don’t appreciate the thought, but really, don’t,” Tony mumbles just loud enough for Dead-Eyes to hear. “It would draw attention and we really don’t need that.”

And if Tony is still humming AC/DC under his breath? Well, nobody save Dead-Eyes is gonna know—and it’s not like the guy will talk.

Tony is still humming the song half a minute later, when he suddenly realises that the rhythmic dum-dum-dum he’s been hearing in his head actually sounds more like a rumpa-rumpa-tap. And it’s not as much a part of his imagination as he would have liked.

Taking a deep breath and forcing himself to realise it with a soft swish between his teeth, Tony closes his eyes and says to no one in particular, “Please tell me I’m not hearing a chopper.”

“I’m not hearing a chopper,” Dead-Eyes repeats obediently.

“Me neither,” the blonde who’d been eying Dead-Eyes up calls out from where she’s standing near the tail of the boat. “I count three."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, it might be a little cruel to end it here. Just a little. But I hope all of you who celebrate Christmas have a wonderful holiday with your loved ones, a relaxing time and make lots of precious memories that will make you smile for a long time after! And everyone else, I wish you a wonderful, peaceful Sunday! 
> 
> Thank you for reading this story and please share your thoughts and impressions in the comment section!!!


	9. Resort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which HYDRA draws its own conclusions, Natasha and Clint get unexpected news, Tony really, really hates water, and the Winter Soldier tries to be helpful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really sorry I didn't update last week, but with the holidays and getting sick, I just couldn't get this chapter done fast enough. Still, I'll hopefully be able to resume my weekly schedule now. And hey, at least I've got another long chapter for you to enjoy :)
> 
> Btw I'm gonna need you to cut me a little slack for the happenings in this chapter. Most of what happens to Tony is based on - well, Mr & Mrs Smith, James Bond and Kim Possible episodes...so. It might not be entirely realistic. But I hope it works out within the story. Happy reading!

.At a secret research facility.

The commander tiredly rubs his temples. His position comes with a lot of responsibility—in an organisation like theirs, that also means his life expectancy is strongly tied to his professional success. Despite that, the commander is no stranger to reporting failure. Research facilities like the one he’s become the head of drown in failure most of the time.

Most of their experiments don’t work at all or prove to expensive or unpractical to be of use, and it’s certainly not rare that a discovery is made that—while most certainly groundbreaking from a scientific point of view—is, simply put, insane. It’s the main reason the commander has rebelled for years against the practice of hiring scientists that have been let go by less open-minded corporations after attracting negative attention. True, almost all of them are brilliant, but they’re also mad. Which actually isn’t as often a good thing as you might think it would be.

Then again, hiring people straight out of college doesn’t seem the answer to the problem either—not if you use Bianca White as an example at least. The commander’s lips twist, but it’s the only outward expression of fury he allows himself. He has already spent several hours raging about the incapable whelp; there is no point in wasting any more energy on her.

Besides, runaways happen. HYDRA has its way of dealing with those of weak stomachs and heavy consciences. The organisation always catches up with them. Eventually.

 _Now he’ll just have to get his superiors around to his way of thinking_ , the commander thinks wryly. That shouldn’t be a problem. After all, megalomaniacs with a superiority complex several miles long are known for being open to different perspectives and ideas.

“Sir?” one of the underlings—a senior underling, given that he seems nervous but hasn’t hesitated to address him, nor is he curling into himself as though the commander were an unleashed beast—speaks up. “I have the update on Fury’s movements you wanted. Romanov, Barton and Rogers have all been put on temporarily hold while the search for Stark is still ongoing. Hill is in charge of the operation, and from what our sources have gathered, she’s determined to keep the Avengers as far away from it as possible. They are currently operating under the assumption that Stark has been kidnapped by rogue agents, White being their prime suspect. They’ve focused much of their attention on her.”

The commander presses the tips of his fingers together as he considers the information. “That going to be a problem?”

The underling’s hesitation is really all the answer he needs. “White did a great job, sir. But if they dig deep enough, they’ll find something eventually. As you know, White was hired under the table, and while SHIELD will no doubt draw their own conclusion, not all the circumstances can be hidden.”

“We don’t need them hidden.” The commander waves the concern off carelessly. “We just need to ensure it won’t lead them back to _us_. What about the Avengers? Anything we’ll have to worry about?”

“No, sir.” The underling shakes his head and hands over another file. One of these days, their facility is going to drown in paperwork. “They’ve stayed within easy reach of the tower since Stark’s disappearance.”

“Hm.” The commander purses his lips in thought. There is no question that the Avengers will pop up at an unfortunate time later on—it is in their nature to be a major hindrance of any plan he personally weaves. Still, for the time being, it’s a negligible concern. “What about Banner?” he asks, just to be sure.

The question causes the underling to grimace in discomfort. “Banner was last reported seen in Chile three weeks ago, but by the time a small team had been dispatched to verify the sighting, he was already gone. Hasn’t been seen since.”

“Ah well. Keep an eye out but don’t bother putting to many resources behind it. Banner won’t be found until he wants to be found, fucking military made sure of it,” the commander grumbles. They had the chance to chip Banner and missed it; now they would simply have to live with the oversight. On the bright side, this, at least, is one mess he isn’t responsible for. “With Stark publicly declared missing? He’ll show up eventually.”

The underling nods in acceptance, not offering an opinion of his own one way or another. Yes, definitely a senior. The commander will have to keep an eye on him—competence has a way of making people dangerous. Of course, incompetence comes with its own risks, as White has proven when she secured the Asset with a fucking Star Wars’ quote. Every time the words run through the commander’s mind, he wants to scream. And kill White. Violently so.

“Sir!” Another underling—this one clearly less experienced than the first, but apparently too upset to fear for their life—approaches them in a hurry. “Here!” The underling offers yet another fucking file, though he’s holding it more like a pressure sensitive bomb than one would a few sheets of paper. “The latest records of the tracking devices. There’s been an unexpected development!”

After a precursory scan of the documents, the commander is starting to feel a bit like a broken record. That doesn’t mean he wishes to slaughter White any less. It certainly doesn’t help that his headache is back—with vengeance.

“I don’t understand.” The senior underling frowns. “What does all of this mean?”

The commander ignores him, his thoughts racing. This entire clusterfuck of a mission has revolved around White from the very beginning. She was the one who picked the Asset’s activation phrase. She was the one who planned the attack on New York. She was the one who coordinated the teams, who was responsible for capturing Stark.

White had been working with the Asset for years, had ample time to plant contingencies, to shape his programming to her liking. She’d made use of that power too, far more than most previous handlers had. At the time, he’d appreciated White’s dedication, but now? Now he wonders whether it hasn’t been the sign of something else entirely.

“It means,” the commander mutters after a long moment of contemplation, “that SHIELD may be right after all.”

* * * * *

.On a small tourist boat.

For one moment—three point seven seconds, to be precise—Tony allows himself to panic. Unable to wrap his mind around the girl’s suggestion, furiously reviewing the past few days in search of whatever mistake he’s made that might have gotten them caught, horrified by the realisation that they’re trapped with nowhere to go, inappropriately amused by the irony of his paranoia being proven right in the worst possible way…

It’s too much, overwhelmingly so, and Tony freezes. Then the moment passes and just like that, instincts honed by nine years of an unforgiving battle to survive slam down onto the panic, the chaos, the disbelief, and shut it all down. Until all that remains is a focus so intense, it would make Tony uncomfortable were he not the one wielding it.

First thing first—take care of the closest threat.

Tony’s eyes fixate on the blonde girl that has already drawn his attention twice. He doesn’t bother with explicit commands—they’d accomplish nothing, safe scare the other tourists, and so far he has no reason to suspect that there are any other plants—instead he simply gestures into her direction. A sharp half-turn of his open hand, followed by a slight wiggling of his index finger. There are no words involved, but he might have just as well signed the girl’s death certificate. From the widening in her eyes, she knows it too.

Dead-Eyes approaches her, determined but unhurried, and Tony watches as the girl takes a reflexive step backwards. It won’t matter, they all know that. They’re stuck on a small boat—there’s nowhere any of them can run.

“Woah, easy there, tiger!” The girl raises her hands defensively. She’s drawing attention from the other people as well, but Tony isn’t too worried about that. If one of SHIELD’s finest STRIKE teams couldn’t take Dead-Eyes down, a bunch of civilians sure as hell won’t be a threat. “You don’t wanna do this, you really don’t!” The remarkable thing is that even though her gaze is fixated on Dead-Eyes, Tony gets the feeling she’s talking to him.

“Why not?” he asks, curious despite himself. There’s something about this girl that’s bothering him, niggling thought in the back of his mind. A sense of familiarity Tony can’t put his finger on.

“Because they found you,” the girl says softly. She appears almost calm, safe for the white-knuckled grip she has on the metal railing at her back. “I’m the only one who can tell you how they did that.”

There’s no reason to believe her, and every reason to believe that the girl is lying to save her own skin, but Tony calls out for Dead-Eyes’ anyways. “Wait!” He doesn’t know why. It’s reckless, stupid even. Yet there is something about this girl, specifically, that makes him hesitant to have her removed.

“Nothing permanent,” Tony settles on—not quite managing to suppress his inappropriate delight when Dead-Eyes doesn’t hesitate to comply—watches the girl let out a startled gasp before she crumbles to the ground, face pale and motionless.

Satisfied that he has minimised the risk without fully discarding a possibly useful source of information, Tony then turns his attention towards step number two: get the horrified civilians out of the range of fire. In a space as limited as the small boat an impossible goal—luckily there happens to be an island full of loud but hopefully non-aggressive iguanas nearby. Not ideal, but it will have to do. Tony certainly would prefer to take his chances with the dragons rather than the choppers, but he’s pretty sure he doesn’t get to make that particular choice.

“Get everyone except her off the ship!” he commands, completely ignoring the outraged college students trying to attack Dead-Eyes in a misguided attempt to help the girl. It would be laughable, if  Tony were the kind of man to draw amusement from watching a couple of mice rallying against a snarling panther. And if his lips twitch suspiciously, nobody is there to call him out on it.

“Alright, people, everyone get off the boat now!” he yells, watches dispassionately as Dead-Eyes bodily throws one man overboard and then another. People scream, one woman drags her boyfriend towards the railing in fear. The boatsman protests, but Dead-Eyes is as unstoppable as a force of nature—and Tony feels sorry for the man, he really does, but being stranded on a popular tourist spot for a couple of hours isn’t going to kill any of them. Whereas staying on this boat just might.

Even as the last man is thrown into the sea with a undignified scream, Tony guns the engine. He has a vague idea of how to steer the boat, which will hopefully be enough. It’s not like he’ll have to get far, Tony thinks with a grim glance towards the sky, where the black dots are slowly drawing closer like three overgrown bumblebees about to devour their chosen target. He’ll just have to hope he’ll get far enough away to keep the civilians out of harm’s way.

And with that, he forces away every thought regarding the tourists. Tony’s done what he could for them. It’s time to concentrate on ensuring his own survival.

He’s really getting tired of people trying to kill him off before he’s gotten the chance to change something meaningful. Technically, Tony supposes, he should be tired of people trying to kill him in general, but when it’s not endangering the one mission he’s sacrificed everything for, it’s actually kind of soothing. Some things just never change, no matter where and when he is.

“What is the objective?” Dead-Eyes asks, standing to Tony’s right once more. There is no inflection in the question, nor any worry about the clichéd black helicopters slowly closing in on them that Tony can make out.

“To survive,” is his immediate, grim reply. There’s no thought put into it, but Tony doesn’t regret the words either. Doesn’t make a move to take them back. They’re the truth after all, what it all comes down to. Tony needs to survive, needs to fulfil his mission. No matter the cost. That’s what they’d all agreed on.

_“No, Victory. For the very last time: the answer is no,” Stark says with finality._

_Seeing the shattered, disbelieving look on the woman’s face causes a twinge of unease to tighten in his chest. It does not, however, change his mind._

_“You—You don’t get to decide that!” Vic cries out, eyes wet with tears she stubbornly refuses to let fall. Her voice is shaking, wether out of fury or horror is impossible to say. “It’s not your choice to make!”_

_And it’s that contempt, that unvoiced accusation in her gaze that makes Stark snap._

_“Forty-two people!” he shouts, slaps his palms on the narrow laboratory table so hard, the cheap plastic gives and vials, cans, Bunsen burner, and sheets over sheets of paper crash to the floor. “You’re talking about the lives of forty-two people, innocent people! Children!” He laughs then, ugly and hateful and not at all like a laugh is supposed to sound. “And for what? A magical ritual you think might save the world? A blood sacrifice that could just as likely damn this earth as it could bring its salvation?”_

_“They volunteered! Out of their own free will!” Vic screams back, hands clenched into tight fists at her side. “They are willing to die for this world, just as you are! As I am! They are willing to change what happened, because they still have hope!”_

_“Then they are fools.” And just like that, the building rage inside him calms, eased by the crisp clarity of newfound understanding. “And you are perhaps the greatest fool for believing their deaths would do anything but to spit on all that we’ve sacrificed to ensure their survival.” If at all possible, Stark’s voice sharpens even more, his attention focused completely on her now. “You talk like this ritual would be some grand sacrifice, would give their deaths meaning, when it’s nothing but senseless slaughter and wild magic that may or may not bow to our wills if we amuse it!”_

_“This isn’t about them at all, is it?” Vic sneers, the same viciousness dripping from her words that she so skillfully wields in battle. “It’s about your issues with magic. It’s about your damn pride. What, because your precious science doesn’t hold the solution we need? Get over yourself, Stark. It’s—“_

_“Don’t!” Stark cuts her off, and there is a coldness in his eyes that has delivered thousands of death sentences. A coldness that is still yearning for more. “Don’t you dare insinuate this is about me, Victory! This is about you! It’s always been about you! You’re a liar and a pretentious bitch, and every word you speak only proves me right. Don’t you dare pretend this is about saving the world!” Stark closes his eyes for a moment, and when he opens them again, they burn as bright as shooting stars on an open night sky. Whatever it is Victory reads in his expression, it causes her to back away from him, and the darkest part of his soul revels in it. But distance won’t save her from this, he won’t allow it._

_“You are still so eager to sacrifice yourself, Victory,” Stark hisses with renewed venom. She flinches at that, but it’s not enough. He doesn’t just hurt anymore, these days, he annihilates. “And one might call me a hypocrite for calling you out on it, but the truth is, we couldn’t be any less alike. I’d die for these children, I’d die for all of them. I’d die for this world! You? You want to die for a world that no longer exists. You want those children to sacrifice themselves for_ your _loved ones that are long_ dead _. The truth, Victory, is that you fought and you lost! And that is perhaps the only thing you can’t handle.”_

_For a long moment after, nothing but silence and their harsh breaths fill the air between them. Stark’s gaze is burning now, a laser-sharp focus fuelled by the dangerous knowledge of a man who recognises a fellow soul—and rejects everything they stand for. He is not blind to the tears on Victory’s cheeks, but they don’t move him as they might once have._

_“We will find a better way,” Stark says finally, like that’s the end of it. “Or not walk any path at all.”_

_And it is._

It’s different, this time. The memory doesn’t have the same grasp on him—or maybe Tony simply doesn’t allow the emotions to take hold as he has before. He doesn’t have the luxury to care right now, not even with all those harsh, unforgivable, ugly words—they’re true, all of them, and that’s perhaps the worst part—echoing in his mind.  

“Alright,” Tony mumbles, more to himself than to Dead-Eyes and steers the boat further away from the island with iguanas. “See that small island over there? Our guide said nobody lives on it, but there’s at least some plant life, trees and the like that might work as cover. Let’s hope we’ll reach it before they catch up—right now we’re so out in the open, it’d be embarrassing for all of us if they missed.”

Tony works the motor as hard as he can, but the small boat hasn’t been built for speed and it shows. He isn’t surprised when the helicopters circle them before they reach the land. He is, however, slightly surprised that at least one of the damn things has a rocket launcher.

Seriously, black helicopters circling him, blowing his stolen boat up? What’s next, freaking laser guns? What the hell is these people’s problem with him anyways?

“Off the boat, now!” Tony shouts, even as his mind keeps up a running—and very much sarcastic—commentary. “And don’t forget the girl!” He climbs over the small railing, a little unsteady because the boat is still going at its highest speed. Blinks up towards the sky, against the bright sunlight for a moment, before he throws himself forward, hoping against all odds that the island he’s wanted to reach isn’t still as far away as it looks. And that Dead-Eyes won’t sink to the ground of the ocean with that metal arm of his.

Then he hits the water and his world is submerged in blissful silence.

* * * * *

.Avengers’ Tower, New York City.

Natasha doesn’t believe in rereading the same information over and over, hoping to find a clue that has so far been overlooked. It’s foolish, and more often than not a waste of time and resources she can’t stand for. That doesn’t stop her from pouring over Agent Bianca White’s file with an obsessiveness she usually works hard to keep disentangled from her job. An obsession like that, when indulged, almost always takes a turn for the worse later on. But there is something about this particular mole that is vexing her. And if there is anything Natasha despises more than mixing business with personal affairs, it’s missing something.

She can’t let this go. Not until she knows what it is that is bothering her so much about this woman.

A hand squeezes her shoulder and it shows how deep in thought she has been that Natasha actually flinches, one hand already reaching for the knife hidden in her belt buckle. “Easy, Tasha,” Barton’s warm voice breathes into her ear. He’s one of the few people able to laugh her reflexes off. “You alright?”

The question is fuelled by real concern, made all the more obvious by Barton’s watchful gaze, which is—as it so often has been lately—focused solely on her. Natasha forces a small smirk onto her lips, though, going by the way Barton’s eyebrows furrow, it’s not enough to convince him. People truly are a pain in the ass, especially when you let them too close.

With a sigh, Natasha leans back in her unfortunately very comfortable seat—and if Stark were here, he’d be smirking smugly at her right now, she just knows it. That the motion also means she is leaning into Barton’s hand instead of pushing it off is a coincidence. And possibly as sign that she is finally starting to lose her touch.

“No,” Natasha answers honestly, too tired to bother with pointless lies. “I’m not.” She closes her eyes, struggles not to let how defeated she feels reflect in her voice. “At the rate we’re going, we’ll be lucky if we even find a body.”

And that thought shouldn’t slowly, painfully turn her insides into stone, she should be able to shrug the potential loss off easily. Being an Avenger doesn’t come with a retirement plan. So why isn’t she?

“I’m supposed to be better than this,” Natasha admits eventually, despite herself. “We’re supposed to be better than this.”

Barton’s grip has tightened through her speech, to the point where it’s balancing on the threshold to becoming painful. Natasha embraces the sensation. She’s so tired of the ever-present numbness this case has cast over her like a thick blanket of clouds, covering even the most stubborn rays of sunshine.

“There are always gonna be cases like this, Tash,” Barton mutters after a moment. He sounds resigned, and that is perhaps even worse than the underlying sadness in his words. “There’re always gonna be answers we don’t get—or that just aren’t enough, don’t satisfy you the way you think they should—and there are always gonna be dead-ends we can’t connect to something bigger.”

Everything Barton says is true. That doesn’t make it any easier to hear—but Natasha has never been one to lament the cruelty of life. She prefers to use her favourite knives on a nearby target whenever the urge to wallow grows too strong for her taste.

“It’s just, none of this makes any sense,” Natasha says, leans her head back so far that she can stare at the white ceiling. The position exposes her throat more than she’s comfortable with, but that’s the whole point: to push herself. It’s what her trainers used to do, used to be the only thing she knew, and sometimes the comfort of old habits is too enticing to resist.

And Barton, as always, indulges her. Traces the tips of his fingers over her neck, then the hollow of her throat, draws a fine line towards her chin. “Tell me,” he asks, and he’s so calm Natasha wants to shoot him, wants to scratch his face bloody, wants to drown in the serene air he exudes.

She takes a deep breath, opens herself to the steadiness of Barton’s presence, allows her muscles to relax, expels the tension clinging to her core. It’s more of a going through the motions than a true practicing of mental control—Natasha’s done this too many times to count by now, could do it in her sleep if she had to. Has, in fact, done it whilst concussed, unable to feel her left arm, and about to suffocate. Good times.

Taking one more centring breath, Natasha slaps Barton’s hand away and rises from her chair to reach one of the files spread out all over the table. “It’s White,” she explains needlessly, opens the personal file she can recite by heart.

“I thought we’d leave the traitor at Fury’s non-existent mercy,” Barton comments as he takes the file, flips through the pages curiously. He’s teasing-but-not, and she knows if she doesn’t answer, she’ll soon have a when-the-fuck-did-you-change-your-mind-and-why-the-fuck-didn’t-you-tell-me-about-it conversation to look forward to. Again.

“I did. I _do_ ,” Natasha purposefully emphasises. “And I still don’t think that she’s gonna lead us to Stark. But it’s not like anything else is, either, so I figured it couldn’t hurt. And White…” That young, pretty, unremarkable face staring back at her, a sweet smile with just enough to edge to stand out in a crowd, if only for a moment.

_“You’re the one they’re talking about. The Black Widow.”_

_Annoyance. Wariness._

_“Maybe. Who are you?”_

_A quick smile. A shrug._

_"Who knows. Apparently no one worth talking about.”_

Natasha opens her mouth. Closes it again. How do you put something into words you’ve been careful to never acknowledge? Not even inside your own mind? “White was one of us. For years,” is what she settles on after a moment. The words are woefully inadequate, but Barton is well-equipped to reading between the lines.

“It’s not your fault, Tasha,” Barton says. And he doesn’t appear angry, that would be too easy. He’s _earnest_. Natasha hates when he pulls that card. “There are hundreds of agents, you don’t know everyone. Can’t read everyone. And White—she had a team. She had colleagues who worked by her side for years, and none of them saw this coming.” A twitch in the muscles of Barton’s jaw—neither of them are fond of traitors; quite ironic, when you think about it—and he’s just some energy short of grounding his teeth. Shrugs, not quite as casual as intended. “Some people just slip through the cracks. It’s nobody’s fault, which means it’s everyone’s fault, if you want to be technical about it.”

“You ate crappy truth spells for breakfast?” Natasha knocks their shoulders together teasingly.

“Fortune cookies actually.” Barton grins right back, and just like that she knows they’re fine.

“Anyways, that’s not what I meant. My point is, White was the perfect mole. Nobody was suspecting her. She was embarrassingly clean. No whispers, no accusations. Nothing. Why would she, why would any self-respecting agent give up a perfectly safe, working identity?” Natasha shakes her head at the mere thought.

White has been a SHIELD agent for years and as far as Natasha can tell, she’s never raised any red flags. Meaning she’s good. And dedicated. People don’t just throw years of their lives away, serving an organisation they don’t care for. Everyone believes in something.

“Just to slaughter a team she could have, potentially, gotten killed any time with much less personal risk? Why now?” she asks, gaze fixated on the missing agent’s picture. “What changed?”

Barton frowns and pulls a picture from the small B&B where the STRIKE team was slaughtered out from under one of the autopsy reports. “We assumed the attack was planned, that it was a trap from the get go.”

Natasha nods. “Brickley, the officer who dispatched the STRIKE team, confirmed that he’d been acting on information he was unable to share,” meaning a bribe, “when he came to the legitimate decision. He identified White as a Andrina Flynn, an alias she had used before, but never for anything incriminating that Hill could find.”

“Exactly,” Barton agrees. “White always used that name for low-key activities that might get her a fine if caught. At worst. What if the hit on the B&B _wasn’t_ an exception? What if it wasn’t a trap—or at least not one planned by White?”

“The mission was routine, at first, until it took an unexpected turn,” Natasha continues the train of thought, eyes narrowed. “The target, it has to be the target. It was unclear who exactly the team was supposed to apprehend, maybe they didn’t know. And when it turned out to be someone White didn’t expect, someone she had to protect—“

“She turned against her team,” Barton finishes. “It would explain the location, the timeline that never added up. Maybe the fight doesn’t make sense because it wasn’t planned. You can’t read hidden meanings in the results of a spur of the moment decision.”

“It’s as good a theory as any.” With another weary sigh, Natasha snaps the file in her hand closed and drops it on the table. With any luck, that will be enough to keep White’s face from haunting her for the time being. “I guess we’ll never know, not with what little we’ve gathered so far.” And the admission stings, even though she should be used to it by now.

Barton rolls his eyes, clearly unwilling to put up with her moping even a second longer. “C’mon.” He shoves her towards the door. “I haven’t slept in nineteen hours, and I don’t doubt for a second that it’s been even longer for you. People need sleep, Tasha. Even you.”

Which is, of course, when JARVIS speaks up for the first time since he’s revoked Barton’s vent privileges for being a, quote, intolerably annoying worrywart. To this moment, it’s the single most un-JARVIS thing Natasha has ever heard him say. She’s almost impressed by her partner’s ability to piss off even an artificial intelligence used to babysitting Tony Stark like that.

“Apologies, Miss Romanov, Mister Barton, Director Fury wishes to speak with you,” says the ever so polite British voice. Natasha wonders when she stopped being creeped out by the not-quite-sentient-being surrounding them.

“Please put him through, Jarvis,” she cuts through Barton’s whining—there’s no point in trying to avoid Fury, and they both know it. It’s like playing hide and seek with Stark in the guy’s own tower. Barton just likes to complain about it.

The wall to their left, previously portraying a painting of what Natasha assumes is an expensive piece of abstract art, flickers and reveals Fury’s grim face, glaring so hard, he’ll pop a blood vessel any moment now.

“Congrats, Romanov, Barton,” the director growls, and his tone of voice makes it very clear that congratulations are the last thing on his mind. “You’ve been cleared for active duty. My office, one hour.”

The screen turns black before either of them have the chance to react in any form.

“Charming, as always,” Barton comments drily. “I guess that sleep will have to wait.”

They both know this is likely an understatement. Their punishment wouldn’t have been lifted unless they were really needed—and in their line of work, that’s hardly a good sign.

* * * * *

.On a tiny, uninhabited island in the Bahamas.

Later, Tony won’t care to remember too much about how he reaches the small, uninhabited island he has chosen as his temporary retreat—it involves a lot of burning saltwater in his eyes, almost drowning more often than he cares to admit, being pulled around by Dead-Eyes like a freaking puppet, and losing a battle against a stupid current. But somehow he makes it. Despite the panic clawing at the back of his throat, despite the strangled gasps for air, despite the terrifying sensation of sinking, sinking, sinking. Somehow, they make it.

And Tony is under no illusion—he’d be dead by now if it wasn’t for Dead-Eyes. Also, he really, really hates water. Next time he flees the country, he’s hiding in Siberia, at least there he won’t fucking drown.

The irony of that thought makes Tony choke—oh, wait, no. That’s the water in his lungs. Damn it.

“Bloody Bahamas!” Tony coughs from where he’s lying motionlessly in the sand. It takes him a moment to realise that his sentiment, no, his exact words are echoed by a raspy voice to his left, but he can’t bring himself to turn his head just yet. His muscles feel like putty, and his ribcage about two sizes too small to contain the air he needs.

Right, the girl. She must have made it as well then. Good for her. Or not—from the sound of it, she’s throwing up sea water right now. Not an enviable position, as Tony knows. His own throat is burning as though someone has slipped inside and chosen to peel off the first layer of skin in there.

He’d kill for a bottle of water right now.

After what feels like an eternity of simply lying there in the sand, staring unseeingly at the still unfairly blue sky, Tony finds the strength to turn onto his stomach. Planting both hands into the sand for better balance, he pushes himself into an upright position. Despite the faint—but not as faint as it should be, not faint enough to be _safe_ —humming in the air, proof that they’re still being hunted, Tony allows himself a moment to take his surroundings in.

The island is tiny, compared to other islands they’ve been vacating especially, but it’s plenty of space to hide three humans. The beach—if you can call the slip of sand they’re resting on a beach—takes up less than a fifth of the grounds, which is good. Despite how pretty the sand looks, it doesn’t provide them with any cover. Luckily, beyond the small beach, the grounds become rocky and uneven. Higher up the rocks are covered in greenery that eventually grow into trees and a thick undergrowth that should cover them just fine.

What makes this island perfect is that it doesn’t provide any improvised landing space for the helicopters that Tony can see—he’ll just have to hope that counts for the rest of the island he currently can’t see as well.

“C’mon,” he mutters—and, fuck, but speaking hurts—forces his sluggish body to get onto his feet. He stumbles a little, but manages to catch his balance. “We need to get up there, the trees will cover us. We’re sitting ducks out here.”

Dead-Eyes, who looks like a drowned kitten with his hair plastered flat against his forehead—although admittedly a drowned kitten that couldn’t care less about the water and is, in fact, about to kill you—immediately starts to move. The girl, on the other hand, is struggling, same as Tony. It’s a bit of a relief, really. Next to Dead-Eyes’ seemingly endless energy, Tony is starting to develop a complex.

“You know, a little help would be appreciated!” Tony snaps in annoyance as his legs once more threaten to give out under him. Who knew running on sand was so hard when your entire body ached like you’d just been in the middle of a tug war between Dead-Eyes and the sea?

Next to him, the girl is stumbling and swearing up an impressive storm under her breath. Tony thinks he might like her. At the very least, he’ll borrow some of those expressions when the situation calls for it.

His distraction costs Tony. Without any warning, the ground under his feet disappears, the entire worlds spins on itself, and by the time Tony has pushed the urge to throw up down, he’s dangling over Dead-Eye’s shoulder like a floppy sack of potatoes. Again.

“What the hell are you doing?” Tony chokes out incredulously, though he doesn’t try too hard to fight the secure hold Dead-Eyes has on him. One, because it would be utterly pointless, and two, because he doesn’t have the energy. The way things are going he’ll be lucky not to fall asleep before the stupid wannabe villains catch up.

“Helping,” Dead-Eyes grunts, like it’s obvious. Maybe it is.

Tony opens his mouth to—he doesn’t know what, protest maybe, or at least complain to save some of his crumbling dignity—but then his eyes fall on the girl a few steps behind. She’s clearly struggling to keep up, slowing despite herself, panting and her entire face flushed and sweaty despite the wet clothes clinging to her skin. Tony has zero desire to join her, never mind that the rocks look a lot bigger up close, and it’s actually less running and more speed-climbing they have to do to reach the tree line. Not to forget that his current size will work against him.

Yeah, on second thought, there are worse things than being carried over Dead-Eyes’ shoulder. With that thought, Tony closes his mouth again, and pays attention to the dreaded sound of the helicopters. They look kind of weird upside down, which is how Tony sees them when Dead-Eyes suddenly turns to pull the girl up the last few steps towards their much needed cover.

It’s almost unreal, Tony can’t help thinking. From what he can make out, the helicopters are completely black, he doesn’t see any logo. And that’s… painfully cliché, to be honest. What’s next, an endless bunch of nearly identical henchmen storming the island with machine guns and grenades?

A cackling villain leaving them stranded on an air mattress on a sea filled with piranhas?

“You know they’re tracking us, right?” the girl gasps in between huge gulps for air. She’s stumbling along them now, and despite her clear determination Tony has no illusion about how long she’d last in a battle. Even Dead-Eyes is moving slower than usual. None of them are in any shape to deal with the fight that’s fast approaching. “Even if they can’t see us, they’ll still now in which direction to point their guns.”

“I’m working on it,” Tony snaps back. It’s not like there is a lot he can do about it right now. One way or another, they’re trapped on this island.

“Well, work faster!” the girl hisses back, only to flinch back at the glare Dead-Eyes shoots her.

For being completely blank, his eyes sure hold a lot of very painful death promises, Tony thinks in guilty delight. “I’m trying,” he replies anyway, only to promptly bite his tongue when Dead-Eyes’ suddenly stumbles.

“Ow!” Tony jerks reflexively in Dead-Eye’s grip, at the same time as the girl slumps against a tree. Her eyes are fixated on something behind Tony.

“They’re here.”

Indeed when Tony pushes himself upright, he can make out the three helicopter circling the small patch of land above them. Like three huge bats, dancing on the sky. And he hopes his eyes are playing tricks on him, because there’s no way those are ropes he sees, slowly unrolling themselves towards the ground. That would be stupid. That would be insane. No way are a bunch of henchmen climbing down a rope out of a black helicopter to catch him.

“Who the fuck comes up with these plans?” the girl besides him asks incredulously.

Tony ignores her. He’s too busy wondering when exactly his life turned into a bloody Kim Possible episode.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo, what do you think? Natasha's and Clint's scene turned out longer than I expected, and I feel like I added some more layers to their interactions. I'm curious if you agree. Also, a couple of you already shared your suspicions in regards to the girl (clearly I have to work on my subtlety) but if you have any ideas, please tell me! 
> 
> Oh, and we got another insight into the future and Vic's and Tony's interaction. What do you think about the two of them? 
> 
> I eagerly await your reactions and wish you all a happy Sunday and a great week :)


	10. Ritual

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tony realises he’s been thinking about the wrong fandom all along. This isn’t Kim Possible at all—this is some super-duper messed-up Supernatural crap. Also for an uninhabited island, there sure are a lot of bodies on this one…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Betaed by the wonderful [@folklejend](https://folklejend.tumblr.com/) who deserves lots of cupcakes and hugs for being amazing and going over this chapter within three hours of getting it because I only finished it this morning. Give her lots of love please :)

****.On a tiny, uninhabited island in the Bahamas.

What happens next is something nothing, not even nine years of futuristic knowledge, could have prepared Tony for. He’s leaning back and forth, trying to make out the shadows of the creepy helicopters that have been following them like wasps drawn to a glass of lemonade in between the leaves of the trees surrounding them. The choppers appear to slowly lower themselves, though they probably, hopefully, don’t plan to land. By now, the booming noise of their motors is impossible to ignore, as is the wind that blows Tony’s hair out of his face—which is convenient, so that’s something.

The girl is muttering under her breath, but Tony doesn’t pay her any mind. He’s transfixed by the sight of their doom descending down on them in slow-motion—alright, that might be a tad dramatic. They aren’t dead yet. Besides, he’s got Dead-Eyes. If that guy is anything like his future self, he’s damn hard to kill off. As is Tony himself.

Focusing on those reassuring thoughts isn’t as easy as Tony would like it to be. Or maybe he doesn’t trust bland drivel as much as he used to.  _ They had all stopped believing in hope eventually, hadn’t they? Some just held out longer than others. _

“We could really use a miracle right about now,” Tony whispers. The words are lost in the sound of rustling leaves, ripped away by the sharp wind, but he feels better for having said them out loud all the same.

Dead-Eyes makes a noise that falls flat before it can become a full word, and Tony turns his head reflexively, unnerved by anything that can make Dead-Eyes break his apparent vow of silence. But the frantic question never makes it past his lips because in that moment, the sky explodes.

The funny thing is, there is no noise. Tony hears the choked yell of the girl as clearly as his own reflexive, “Get down!” Hears branches break and small stones roll as he throws himself onto the ground. There’s a light so bright, even though Tony isn’t looking at its origin, it sears through his closed eyelids, burns itself deep into his skull. And it doesn’t end. Doesn’t let up. Doesn’t  _ give _ . 

Its brightness is loaded with a physical weight, a heaviness that presses down onto Tony’s limbs, his torso. Pushes the air right out of him—and that, that isn’t right. Light isn’t supposed to do that, isn’t supposed to press you to the ground and keep you there. Like a butterfly stuck with needles to a collection. The pressure keeps building up, like lightning racing towards the earth. And then, as sudden as it came, it’s gone again.

Tony blinks. And blinks. And blinks again. He rubs his hands over his eyes, a pointless attempt to soothe the ache, and regain something approaching a clear vision. By the time the bright sparkles in his eyes finally clear up, Tony finds himself still lying on the hard ground, shaky but unharmed. There’s a gentle breeze caressing his skin, leaves rustling above him. A mockery of peace in the aftermath of a devastating storm.

_ It takes him a long time to realise that the soft, choked sound Vic makes are sobs. And even after the realisation, Stark can’t work out what, exactly, they mean. He can’t remember the last time he saw anyone cry—real tears, tears that don’t stand for pain or manipulation, that is. _

_ “Every morning,” Vic says eventually, her voice as shaky as her hands when she clasps them in front of her. _

_ Stark turns to face her, observes her profile in the dim twilight. There are tears running down her cheeks freely, utterly unashamed of her lapse of control in a way he’s never witnessed Vic be. She’s too guarded to be comfortable expressing emotions. Usually, at least. Wound too tightly to let anyone close. Even him. Especially him. _

_ Barnes told him they were too alike once. Stark doesn’t see it. _

_ “Every morning,” Vic continues, stares straight ahead, not acknowledging his presence at all. She doesn’t appear to see anything at all either. “I get up and I wait for it happen. For the sky to burn down around us. For the world to implode in itself. For the poison that seeps into everything we touch to finally reach the heart and  _ kill _.” She giggles, high and perhaps a little unhinged—not that Stark can judge her now, can he?  _

_ “But it doesn’t. Even when you’re stuck in standstill, frozen by a pain so terrible, you’d rather rip out your own lungs through your ribcage than take another breath… We’ve all got that one person, don’t we? The one that keeps us from giving up, from lying down and stop fighting. And when we lose that person that we’d do everything for, that we live for… It doesn’t change anything, in the end. Night still falls, and morning still comes. And the world just keeps on turning. No matter how much it hurts. How impossible it seems. We keep talking about it, keep preparing for the worst, keep saying the world could end tomorrow. But it  _ doesn’t _.” _

_ She turns then, looks at him, eyes brimming with fresh tears in the wake of devastating understanding. “It never will, won’t it?” _

_ And Stark wishes with all his heart that those words could still bring him hope. That they could feel like anything but yet another punch in the gut, another curse carved into his skin. As it is, Barnes’ hand—cool, and unnatural, and safe—is the only thing that keeps him standing.  _

As the last stars in Tony’s sight dissipate, so does the memory. Unfortunately, this one is a little harder to shake off. It’s yet another one involving that woman, Victory—and what a bitch it must have been, living in a post-apocalyptic world with that name. Tony remembers her, of course; years spent fighting side by side are hard to erase in full. But it’s curious, isn’t it? How his memories seem to focus on her, when other people, like Natasha and Barnes, were by his side almost as long?

Tony shakes his head, focuses on getting back onto his feet for the time being. Dead-Eyes and the girl they have with them seem to recover as well, though Dead-Eyes looks a little shell-shocked—a downside, Tony assumes, of having enhanced senses in the face of whatever the fucking hell that was. 

The girl looks pale as a ghost, sick even. She’s staring blindly at the sky. “They’re gone,” she whispers, horror and relief and something more primal than fear etched into her face.

She’s right, but then Tony has already known that. Even if he hadn’t fully processed it until this very moment. Because the noise, the clear rumpa-rumpa-tab of the helicopters is missing.  _ It’s impossible _ , Tony recalls his fragmented thoughts when the light show first started. Followed by a less urgent, but just as damning,  _ where lightning strikes, thunder will follow _ .

But there hadn’t been any thunder, had there? Or at least, none that he’d heard. And so Tony does the only thing he can think of. He tilts his head up and states with a calmness he most certainly doesn’t feel; “Well, that was anticlimactic.”

* * * * *

.In a great hall made of stone.

“Are you sure about this?” Gracie, a young woman who has been with them for less than a year, questions quietly. She isn’t obnoxious or challenging about it—a fact that Epolia appreciates—but doubt, in any shape and form, has the potential to cause great harm. And with how far they have already come, well. There is a delicate balance to these things. It wouldn’t do for a youngling like Gracie to upset the Eye through inexperience and poorly-timed hesitation.

Epolia rises from her chair, a motion that immediately quietens the mumbling as the eyes of everyone present seek out their eldest member. There is no such thing as a leader among them—there can’t be, even though there has to be, for only the Eye shall judge and order, and only Its word shall be their law—but Epolia is the eldest, a position that comes with a certain amount of recognised expertise and respect.

“My dear friends,” she says in a gravelly voice that travels through the entire hall despite her low volume. “Do not fret. There is no cause for worry-“ here, her eyes find Gracie in the crowd, and Epolia holds her gaze steadily, “for our mission has succeeded.”

Her bold declaration is received with the expected excitement, and it pains Epolia to do this, to use their trust in her this way. But it is the only way. She will not allow their faith to waver now, when they have come so far, have achieved so much. Their sacrifices can not, will not be for nothing. Epolia will ensure it.

“How?” Gracie asks, but this time there is no doubt in her eyes, only a growing, desperate hope that reminds Epolia why she had chosen her despite Gracie’s young age all those months ago. “Have you felt the Eye? Have—have we not been found worthy?” Her brown eyes fill with tears at that thought, and Epolia adamantly shakes her head before the girl’s terror can take hold.

“No!” Epolia insists, and that, at least, she knows to be true. “The Eye will approach us when It is ready, and our fidelity will be rewarded. I know this to be true, not because I have been judged, but because I have seen the Heart with my own eyes!”

“The Heart?” 

Epolia can’t make out who in the crowd has said the words, but when she meets their gazes one after the other, she reads the same awe in them she has felt herself upon being graced with the Heart’s presence.

“Yes,” Epolia confirms. Remembers her encounter with the Heart, the pain, the suffering, the bloodshed she had seen in them. The cool detachment of something too big to be fully concealed by its human shell. “It was a youth with eyes of the old, a true warrior, leaving shadows and darkness in its wake, just as the legends have told us to expect.” Epolia takes a deep breath, willing her racing heart to calm down at the memory of having to endure the weight of the Heart’s judgement as it deemed her trustworthy, the warmth, the aching familiarity of its touch.

“But more than that, their very presence resonated in my soul. I—“ Epolia’s voice catches in her throat for a moment, unprepared for the wave of emotion her words bring down upon her. “I have felt Luca. I have heard the calls of our children. There is no doubt, the Heart has been returned to us. And soon it will rejoin the Eye. Soon it will turn this earth’s tide, as it was always meant to be.”

Epolia does not bother to suppress the growing smile on her lips, not when she wishes for her fellow believers to find the same comfort in this knowledge that she has been given. The silence is broken by excited chatter, relieved laughs, and the brilliant tears fuelled by hope alone. Epolia’s eyes pick out Gracie in the crowd, and the young girl’s happiness—written all over her face—eases some of the hollow pain she has carried ever since her grandson’s passing.

“Rejoice, my friends, for the Heart has been returned to us,” Epolia whispers, and watches, as she always does.

_ And with the return of the Heart, darkness shall fall, and the Eye shall be joined by Its Highest, Its Brightest, Its Warmth. And together they shall rise, to purify this bitter earth of its greatest sacrilege.  And though the price shall be high, the sacrifice of the faithful shall be rewarded and their peace shall remain untouched _ , she recites the words she knows by heart in her head.

Epolia smiles.  _ So the end comes upon us then, not in frost or ice, but in flames. _

* * * * *

.On a tiny, uninhabited island in the Bahamas.

“One moment they were right there and the next they were just thrown away, like paperweights!” the girl says numbly. 

Tony turns his head so fast he’s sure he’ll give himself whiplash. “Wait, you saw it happen?”

“Yeah.” The girl wipes a hand over her face. Takes a loud, deep breath, as though she wants to force her body to calm down through sheer will alone. It seems to be working somewhat, because when she looks up again, her gaze is less frantic, almost centred even. “They just—stopped, in mid air. Like they were bouncing off an invisible wall or something.” She shakes her head with a weak laugh, rubs her eyes. “And then the light thing happened—which hurt like a bitch, what the everloving fuck was that anyways?—and I lost track of them. But I’m guessing they crashed? I don’t know. This shouldn’t be possible. Bloody fucking hell, I saw it and I still don’t believe it!”

Tony shakes his head, even as his mind already runs over the options that might explain what they have witnessed. Unfortunately, almost all of them lead back to a single word Tony used to hate ever since Loki first showed up with his brainwashing stick—and hasn’t grown fonder of in recent years: magic. Of course, there is always a second option, a sarcastic voice in the back of his head reminds him.

“Either I seriously need to overthink my stance on the existence of all-knowing deities or I really, really picked the right island,“ Tony ends up saying, stunned despite himself.

Dead-Eyes doesn‘t appear particularly moved by this declaration. He’s still carefully blinking, too slow to be anything but deliberate. Tony wonders whether his eyesight has recovered yet—enhanced senses have to be a bitch when you’re watching a detonation-without-the-explosion-part first hand—but doesn‘t ask.

“Come on,“ Tony says instead. “Let’s see if there’s anything worthwhile on this island. A boat, for example.” Though their luck can’t be that unreal. But hey, it’s not like they have anything else to do, right? They’re essentially stranded. And if they don’t move now, Tony knows he’s gonna sit down somewhere and not get up any time soon. Hell, just the simple question  _ What the fuck just happened? _ runs in circles through his mind, so fast it leaves him dizzy and disoriented. A small—or maybe not so small—breakdown might be in his imminent future. Not that that‘s ever stopped him, but it‘s sure to put a damper on things.

Dead-Eyes complies immediately, a reaction Tony has grown used to. He shouldn‘t, he reminds himself, but it‘s become an afterthought at this point. Or maybe it‘s always been, Tony muses as he brushes the dirt off his hands and knees. Dead-Eyes had been his silent shadow long before he‘d woken up in this crazy world, where nothing made sense and no one acted like they should, after all. And maybe that was precisely the reason Dead-Eyes took so little shape and form in his memories—because a shadow was all he had ever been to Tony.

But thoughts like that have no place on an abandoned island that may well be warded against black helicopters, what with the way Tony’s day is going. And that reminder is enough to motivate him to start moving again, despite the protests of his sore muscles and aching limbs.

_ We‘ll rest when we‘re dead _ , Tony thinks with a grim smile, and stumbled onward. It‘s not like there are may directions to take anyways. Up sounds like the most logical choice.

“Really?“ the girl mutters somewhere behind him. “Why do you people always have to do things the hard way, seriously’ What the bloody hell is wrong with you, and how come I always end up with the batshit crazy ones anyways?” She continues her tirade quietly—though not as quietly as she seems to think—under her breath.

When Tony chances another glance at Dead-Eyes, he’s certain the guy is rolling his eyes. It’s such a fundamentally un-Dead-Eyes-action, Tony actually takes a double-take. But Dead-Eye’s expression is as even as it ever was. He must have been imagining things. Or projecting, more likely.

Next to him, the girl—and Tony really needs to learn her name at some point, this is starting to get awkward—stumbles. Tony turns, more out of abstract curiosity than an earnest desire to help, to find her expression strangely blank. A startling echo of Dead-Eyes’ regular appearance. It doesn’t look as out-of-place on the girl’s features as it should.

“What’s wrong?” Tony asks because Dead-Eyes definitely won’t. He’s observing the girl with a tilted head, like a small boy might watch a butterfly he’s caught in a marmalade glass. And okay, that’s a disturbing comparison to make, even for Tony.

“I think you chose the wrong island,” the girl deadpans, her gaze fixated on something behind Tony.

Tony whirls around, the familiar thrill of  _ threat _ ,  _ attack _ ,  _ chase _ racing down his spine. He doesn’t know what he expects—a gun, a knife, a machete aimed straight at his throat—but what he sees definitely isn’t it.

Without Tony noticing, they’ve reached a high point that allows them to oversee most of the grounds—the ones that aren’t covered completely by trees and bushes, that is—only there isn’t just the expected sand, rock and grass.

“I thought you said the island was uninhabited?“ the girl asks surprisingly even. Perhaps she has reached her limit of shocks per day, and is now simply accepting the twists heading her way, without processing the information or reacting to them at all.

That must be nice. Tony wishes he could say the same for himself.  “It is,“ he winds up answering mechanically. Followed by an unhelpful—though entirely appropriate—“Well, fuck.“

* * * * *

.On the helicarrier.

Fury watches as two of his best agents stare down at the files laid out in front of them. He’s survived a damn long time in the business he’s chosen for a reason, which is why he’s entirely unsurprised when Barton leans back in his chair, obnoxiously chews on his gum—and Fury has no idea how he got a hold of the damn thing—and drawls, “Sooooo, what’s those numbers supposed to be?”

Thanks to many years of dealing with men way more irritating than Barton—politicians, lawyers, Stark, just to name a few—Fury manages not to throttle the man. He’s well-aware that Barton is smart, certainly above average. But as good as Barton is at putting things together at the drop of a hat, he’s even better at dumbing himself down. And turning important meetings into games for his own amusement. And giving Fury just cause to plot his more violent retirement options.

Yes, Barton is a man of many talents indeed. Luckily, Romanoff has a habit of keeping Barton’s most irritating habits in check—if only because she lacks the patience to put up with them.

“So there was a energy spike so high it was picked up all-around the globe.” Romanoff taps a finger onto one of the many diagrams that have been the cause of Fury’s latest migraine. “A spike which originated from a tiny island we didn’t even know existed.”

Well, they had known it existed, theoretically. The island was in their records somewhere—Fury had checked, the last thing they needed was a blot of land appearing out of nowhere—it was just that, until now, no one cared.

“This spike that could be recorded everywhere,” Romanoff continues with an unhappy curl of her lips, “happened only minutes before Iron Man was attacked. A couple of hours before White went rogue. And we’re only hearing about this  _ now _ ?”

Fury’s scowl deepens. Truth is, he’s thought the exact same thing—coincidences don’t happen in their line of work, and a signal like that, while obvious, couldn’t be missed. “The techies recorded it just fine, only we were in the middle of our black-out and missing Stark case,” Fury growls. “And then you developed that charming traitor theory of yours, which meant we were too busy vetting our own men to get the information through to the right people as fast as it should have.”

Barton raises his eyebrows. “That’s awfully convenient.”

If possible, Fury’s expression darkens even more. “Indeed.”

“You know, this could be the signal that activated White.” Romanoff tilts her head. “She might not have been the only one either.”

“It’s not my first day in the bureau, Romanoff!” Fury snaps. “I have people on that already. But they can only interpret the data we already have. I need eyes on the scene. I need the two of you to get your asses onto that fucking island and tell me something I don’t know. Like what the fuck caused such a massive spike and who the fucking hell is behind it!”

And Fury swears, if this is another magical alien letting them run around and chase their own tails, he’s not going to hand this one off to his own people’s court. He’s gonna shoot the fucking bastard himself.

“Take a quinjet and get moving,” Fury barks when neither Barton nor Romanoff make a move to get their asses going. “Dismissed!”

Barton grins brightly—which causes Fury’s head to throb in advance—but Romanoff pulls him out of the office before he can get someone killed. Possibly himself.

It’s only after the door falls shut behind the troublesome duo—and damn, but why do his best agents always have to be such a fucking hassle?—that Hill, who’s been standing quietly by his right side, clears her throat. “Are you sure about this, boss?”

Fury grimaces. The blunt truth that he despises more than anything is that he isn’t sure about anything. Hasn’t been since Stark dropped off the map. And with good reason. The last time the man went missing, he blew himself out of a terrorist cell, revolutionised clean energy and turned into a vigilante with multi-million-dollar resources. Just the thought of not having eyes and ears on Stark makes Fury itchy. That he also had a traitor under his nose and everything has gone pear-shaped without any apparent reason is almost negligible at this point.

“No,” Fury grumbles after a moment of careful consideration. Hill is a remarkable woman and an even better agent, but he knows better than to trust in that. Still, as his second-in-command she deserves certain insights—especially regarding the Avengers. “But I’d rather have Romanoff and Barton causing havoc on some island than in my own backyard. They’re wildcards, Hill. And they’re pissed. You leave them alone too long to stew, and they’ll blow up in your faces, probably bring the whole agency down with them too.”

Hill furrows her eyebrows in consideration. “You saw the footage, though. You really think there’s anything they’ll be able to tell in person that we don’t already know?”

Fury shrugs. “If there is, they’ll find it.” But that isn’t the point. “Besides, I had to clean up your mess somehow, didn’t I?” 

Hill tightens her mouth at that, clearly displeased, but she doesn’t disagree.

She better not. Really, suspending Romanoff, Barton, and Rogers? Giving them endless free time, a dangerously capable AI, and a reason to start a little private hunt? It’s a recipe for disaster if Fury has ever seen one. No, those two are far better off investigating some messed-up freak shit as far from the Stark tower as he can reasonably get them, that’s for sure.

* * * * *

.Still on the same tiny, uninhabited island in the Bahamas.

Tony doesn’t know how long he stands there, frozen. Staring at—he doesn’t know. Except, that’s a lie, isn’t it? He does know. He’s seen sights like this before, and with every time he blinks, the view changes, like a new layer or filter has suddenly been slipped over his eyes. Different faces, different backgrounds. Sand. Grass. Rocks and stones. Children. Adults.

_ “Stark?” _

_ “Stark!” _

_ “Stark!” _

_ A hand grasping his forearm. He whirls around, knife at ready. This close up, it’s personal. _

_ Victory stares at him. A little wide-eyed. A little scared. _

_ He doesn’t lower the knife. _

_ “Tony.” She says it softly, like a prayer. He wants to laugh at that—the gods are all dead, there’s nothing left to pray for—but he can’t find his voice. _

_ “You can’t help them, Tony.” She’s gentle. As though she’s talking to a child. Victory hates children. “They’re gone.” _

_ He isn’t listening. _

_ Victory closes her eyes in defeat. _

_ His hand—holding the knife, don’t let go—trembles. _

_ “Barnes!” _

It’s always the same.

He’s been wrong, Tony admits to himself, with the sort of black humour one might show before his own execution—before the execution of someone else. This isn’t a Kim Possible episode at all. This is some next level Supernatural shit if he’s ever seen one.

The small clearing Tony is staring down at is covered in bodies. And not the skeletons of some ancient sacrifice either. They’re fresh, can’t be more than a few days old. Still so easily recognisable as people, even from where he’s standing. Children.

“Jesus, how many bodies are there?” Tony whispers, unable to keep the horror out of his voice. He should be used to this, he inwardly scolds. He used to be better at shrugging these things off.

“Forty-two,” Dead-Eyes replies immediately, eyes sharper than they’ve been in a while. He’s standing stock-still, but there’s a faint restlessness in the way his gaze shifts from one unmoving body to another.

“That’s…oddly specific,” the girl comments from where she’s leaning against a tree.

“Yeah.” Tony takes in the way the bodies are lying in a circle. The cut throats, the blood. He’ll have to take a closer look to know for sure, but it looks like these children—fuck, they look about as old as he currently is—were killed here. More importantly, they didn’t fight, didn’t run. The blood is very localised, only soaking the grounds where the bodies fell. Maybe they were held in place. Maybe they were willing. “I'm no expert on the occult, but does this look like a ritual to you?”

“You think someone sacrificed these kids?” The girl swallows. “What kind of ritual would include something like this? And who’d be crazy enough to actually do it?”

Tony grimaces. Unfortunately, he knows people who’d do a lot more than this to accomplish what they want. It’s not a short list either. “Nothing good,” he promises darkly. He’s never been a fan of magic, and if there’s any brand of it that has ever deserved his every prejudice, it’s blood magic. 

His hands are clenched into tight fists at his sides when Tony remembers—and how could he forget in the first place? Has he really gone this soft already? Been lulled into a false sense of security because the danger isn’t imminent yet?—the haunting words of that strange, old lady he met at the airport.

_ “Don’t worry, you will find the answers you seek on the grounds of the bloodless children.” _

The words echo in his head. Mock him. Mock the sight of countless children slaughtered for nothing. And Tony—Tony doesn’t think. Stumbles forward, down the hill, toward the bodies that have just been left here. Discarded. Forgotten. He’s seen this all before, and he can’t stop.

He can’t stop.

There’s someone yelling, shouting his name, and Tony can’t tell if it’s real or a memory. Can’t tell if any of this is real. There are footsteps right behind him, a steady presence shadowing him—Dead-Eyes, Tony knows, because this is the only thing he knows, the only thing that’s always, always real.

Dead-Eyes doesn’t stop him though, so Tony doesn’t stop either. Walks even faster. Stumbles. Sinks to his knees besides a body, a little boy with hands as small as his own. Tony doesn’t reach out, but he wants to. Despite the smell, and the insects, and  _ he’s long gone _ but Tony wants to—

_ You’ll find the answers you seek. _

The air is heavy, saturated with a pressure Tony has felt before. But this time, he doesn’t fight it, welcomes it even. Feels as though he’s floating away, is being pulled into different directions, all over the place, and this weight is the only thing pinning him down. The weight and Dead-Eyes’ heavy breathing.

_ “If only we could turn back time.” Victory laughs, shakes her head at her own folly. Stark wonders whether she realises that it is this light-heartedness he admires the most in her. “Would solve all our problems, wouldn’t it? _

_ “That’d be easy. Convenient,” Barnes speaks up with a voice as unused as Stark’s first name. “S’not how the world works.” _

_ There’s something sharp in the glance he throws Victory, something Stark notices but doesn’t quite understand that passes between them. _

_ He shrugs, reloads his gun. They have people to kill. _

_ Barnes and Vic fall into step behind him like he knew they would. _

Tony stares at the boy’s face. He must have been cute, he thinks, when he was alive. Children always are.

_ “It’s everywhere. In the water, the earth, the air. We can’t fight this.” _

_ “But we can draw it out.” _

_ “What would be the point?” _

_ “To find a cure. A better way. To put a stop to this. Save the world. That’s our job, remember?” _

_ “Save the world for whom?” _

He’s been promised answers, even if he hadn’t realised. Hadn’t taken the woman seriously at the time. Because the prospect of someone else knowing had been too daunting, too terrifying to consider. Now Tony can’t stop wondering which questions exactly he’s supposed to get answers to.

_ You’ll find the answers you seek _ . 

It’s nothing but a whisper. A product of his own imagination. And like a key that has finally been put into the correct lock, Tony feels the words slide through his mind, bypassing walls and safety measures he hadn’t been aware of existed.

And with a soft click, the door opens.

_ “Thanos was the catalyst, not the cause. We were only ever going to be brought down by an enemy from the inside. But you already knew that, didn’t you?” _

_ Barnes’ gun doesn’t waver. “You killed Captain America.” _

_ Neither does Stark’s. “You killed Iron Man.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I SWEAR IN THE NEXT CHAPTER YOU'LL FINALLY GET SOME ANSWERS! I wanted to put some into this one as well, at least clear up the girl's identity, but it just didn't work out. So, next chapter. I hope this chapter wasn't too much of a mess. At least, now you know that there are other forces at work in the present as well (we can't have all the drama happen in the not-future, can we?). I wish you a wonderful week and thank you for reading!


	11. Return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which 'the girl' finally gets a name, the difference between spies and criminals are commented on, Tony is definitely compromised, and vampires are the answer to everything. Also, it's about to get very crowded on a certain island.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM SO SORRY FOR HOW LONG YOU HAD TO WAIT FOR THIS CHAPTER!!! I swear, I'd love to give you a great explanation, but the truth is life just keeps running way with me. Which is why I'm afraid I have more bad news: for the foreseeable future I'm going to update this story every second Sunday. I really am sorry for this, but there's no other way I'm gonna be able to keep up with a regular update schedule.
> 
> Still, I hope you enjoy this chapter. It might even hold a few answers for a change ;)
> 
> Betaed by the talented [@folklejend](https://folklejend.tumblr.com/).

.On a tiny, uninhabited island in the Bahamas.

Tony breathes. In and out. He’s staring down at the sunken in face of a dead boy—a sight oddly appropriate for what he’s feeling at this very moment. Which, perhaps surprisingly, isn’t a lot. Because that’s just it. What it all comes down to—came down to, even if the tenses give Tony a headache—is that Tony doesn’t want to remember. Has spent most of those years in the not-so-far-off future fighting and running precisely because he couldn’t afford to slow down and think. Didn’t know what he’d do with himself if he ever got the chance.

He knows, of course. Tony is a genius, and he knows himself well. He knows exactly what he would have done. What he  _ did  _ do, in the end.

Pulling the trigger had been the easiest thing he’d ever done. Of course, by that point he’d had a lot of practice.

Barnes had asked him once. Pulled him aside after another endless meeting with Natasha, Vic, Strange, and Thor—the only people whom Tony had trusted with the mad scheme he was planning. Had lowered his voice, so as not to be overheard by the people they trusted because they had to, eyes steely and unyielding.

“You really think this is gonna work?” Barnes had asked him.

There had been a lot of meaning in those six simple words. How much do you believe in this? How much do you trust them? How sure are you that this is the best way? How sure are you that this is the only way? How far are you willing to go for this chance? How much are you willing to sacrifice?

Tony had told Barnes the same thing he’d told Natasha and Vic. He’d looked up into the clear eyes that held a certain promise of an ice-cold death, and he’d said, “I know it will.” It hadn’t been the first lie Tony had told Barnes, and most certainly not the worst. But it still bothers him, even now. He couldn’t trust Barnes back then, and maybe that had been a mistake. Maybe it had been the only thing he’d gotten right.

_ “Take that gun out of my face before I cut your fucking throat open!” Barnes growls. It’s not an empty threat. Barnes doesn’t make empty threats. _

_ Stark couldn’t care less. The raging fury setting his blood on fire won’t allow for anything less. “Someone,” he hisses venomously, “has been messing with the equipment.” _

_ There are only two people with access besides himself. The list of possible suspects is small. Damningly so. _

_ Stark clenches his teeth so hard he can hear them grind against each other. It sends a fuck ton of messed up spikes of pain along his nerves, but he doesn’t fucking care. Just because you’re waiting for it to happen, doesn’t make a betrayal any easier to swallow. _

_ Barnes doesn’t even have the decency to look sorry. “You’re compromised,” he says factually, and the words sound like a death sentence. _

Tony smiles. He doesn’t feel like smiling—certainly doesn’t feel happy, not with those memories that leave a taste of ash on his tongue—but his lips apparently haven’t gotten the memo yet. They’re stubborn, the damn things.

Still. The irony of it all is almost funny. In a fucked up way, that leaves a sick feeling in your stomach because you’re standing at the grave of forty-two children who died for nothing.

_ Of course that’s what you’d believe _ , the voice that sounds too much like Vic for Tony’s peace of mind whispers into his ear.  _ Where would we be if the great Tony Stark admitted that there are powers far beyond his understanding at work in this world? _

“Stark?” someone—the girl, of course it’s the girl, not like Dead-Eyes talks unless he’s being spoken to—asks hesitantly.

Tony gives her points for addressing him at all. He has no delusions about how he looks right now. Kneeling over a dead body, hands buried in dirt and dried blood, smiling down at a half-gone face like a madman.

“Stark?” the girl repeats, after he has presumably gotten caught up in his own thoughts for too long. “What’s going on?”

Tony turns on his heels to blink up at her. Both, because she’s persistent and because it’s easier to look at her than Dead-Eyes right now. “I’m living my own worst nightmare,” he responds, the smile still stuck to his lips as though someone has nailed it onto them when he wasn’t looking. And alright, that might not be as reassuring as he’d intended.

“What?” The girl takes a step backwards. Eyes him with renewed wariness. Tony is almost a little impressed by how unsettled she is by him—for all intents and purposes, a ten year old child.

“Yeah,” Tony continues lightly, as though he hasn’t even heard her. “It’s all there. Forty-two dead children, their throats slit, left where they fell in a circle closed by their own blood.” He laughs. “Died the moment the sun stood at its highest point on grounds that have not been dirtied by murder ever before.”

It’s eerie like someone followed the script of one of the worst ideas humanity ever had. For all that Tony had become, for all he was capable of doing, of sacrificing, there had been a line he had been unwilling to cross. And this ritual? It isn’t the line. It’s a whole fucking ocean behind that line.

Barnes hadn’t cared one way or another. He hadn’t cared about anything since losing Rogers, so that hadn’t been a surprise. But Vic had never understood Tony’s refusal. With Barnes’ brainwashing and subsequent erasure of his whole personality and Tony’s own mental health issues ranging from PTSD—although, frankly, considering his everyday life “post traumatic” had been a very optimistic way of looking at things—to a serious paranoia that increased every day, it had been easy for people to consider Vic the “normal” one.

Sometimes even Tony had fallen into that trap. Realising that Vic didn’t see anything wrong with killing forty-two children—didn’t even understand why they were discussing at all, instead of going ahead and getting it done—had been a much needed eyeopener. She’d been as broken as any of them.

“Sounds like you know what you’re talking about.” The girl is staring at Tony like she’s never seen him before. That’s a lot of judgement for a girl who appears surprisingly comfortable with her position as a hostage.

“Yeah.” There it is again, that laugh that doesn’t sound like his laugh at all, even though Tony knows damn well it’s coming from him. “I guess I do.”

Does he ever. It had been hard, doing proper research after the world had truly gone to shit, but Tony has learned to respect humanity’s surprising adaptability when it comes to persevering knowledge. And after Vic had first caught wind of the ritual’s existence, well. She’d become obsessed. That was the only way to put it.

Tony had never understood her fascination. It wasn’t like there hadn’t been other rituals they’d found—and actually tried for that matter. Despite Vic’s consistent needling, Tony hadn’t actually refused magic ailments. He hadn’t been in a position where he could have afforded that luxury. But something about this particularly gruesome ritual had drawn Vic in. Had her convinced that it would be the answer to everything. Even the things that simply  _ couldn’t be fixed _ .

So yes, Tony knows this ritual. He knows it as well as—if not better than—the one he’s used on himself. Vic has made sure of that.

“It’s got different names, of course. Been around for too long not to.” Tony shrugs. Slowly rises from his crouched position. There is nothing this dead boy will tell him that he doesn’t already know. He focuses on the very much alive girl instead. “But I first learned of it as _navre vrykolaků,_ which has been roughly translated to _he who is of Vrykolakas returns_.”

The girl just stares back at him, unimpressed. “That supposed to mean something to me?”

Tony’s smile twists. She’s right. It had sounded oddly harmless, at the time. “Not really,” he replies honestly. He’d be more worried if she had recognised the name. “Anyways, as it turned out, most people know it as  _ The six sins of Pyrrhus _ . In the name of each sin, seven lives are sacrifices. Of course, historians could never agree which six sins they were, and why only six for that matter, so every book is gonna tell you something different when it comes to the details. But the basics are always the same. And it’s  _ always _ forty-two children.”

Tony pauses again. Shifts his stance a little. Moves closer to Dead-Eyes again, though he still isn’t looking at the man. Can’t. Dead-Eyes isn’t Barnes, not quite, but he’s close. So damn close.

“Thanks for the history lesson,” the girl says dryly, once it becomes apparent that Tony has no plans of continuing his little lecture, and steps delicately around the outstretched arm of a little girl. “But that doesn’t tell me jack shit about why some crazy bastard actually went through with this. What’s this magical ritual supposed to do that someone is willing to kill almost fifty children for?”

“I mean, I could tell you,” Tony admits. “But I think there’s something else we have to address first.”

“Oh?” The girl crosses her arms in front of her chest. “And what’s that?”

In one swift move Tony pulls one of Dead-Eyes’ smaller handguns out of the man’s belt and aims it at the girl’s head. He’s not sure the gun will actually fire, considering that dip into the ocean it’s taken, but he doubts this girl—whoever the fuck she is—is willing to take the chance. He certainly wouldn’t.

“Just details, really,” Tony says with the same fake lightheartedness he’d used to talk about the damn ritual. “Like who the hell you are and how the fuck you know who I am.”

Because she’d called him Stark. There is a very, very short list of people who could possibly know what he looks like at the moment—and Tony has it in good confidence that all of them are trying to kill him. Granted, the choppers were a pretty huge clue as well.

“Easy, kid.” The girl raises her hands pointedly—maybe even sarcastically—but there is no hiding the uneasy shift in her stance. “I’m not trying to hurt you.”

Tony scoffs. “Really? Going for platitudes now? I’ve seen  _ dogs _ who’ve done a better job convincing me not to shoot them.” And okay, bad example. It’s pretty damn hard to bring yourself to shoot a dog. They rarely plot your death behind your back. But Tony is tired, pissed and his arms are shaking, he’s not in the mood to think up something more fitting.

“Well, it’s true.” The girl’s talking in a lower voice now, one that’s almost hypnotically soothing. Tony refuses to let himself be drawn into it, but that’s easier said than done. “I’ve got no interest in hurting you. You, don’t have to believe that though, I get why you wouldn’t. But if you can’t trust me, trust this: I’m not stupid, Stark.” The girl is staring at him now, her eyes open and vulnerable. Tony doesn’t trust vulnerable. Vulnerable people don’t tend to get stranded on an island with a professional assassin and a kid genius they’ve been hunting.

“I’m not going to hurt you while you’re under the protection of the most dangerous man I’ve ever heard of.” The girl raises her eyebrows expectantly at him, as thought that should be obvious.

Tony tilts his head in apparent consideration, before he slowly lowers his gun. Not because she’s convinced him—she’s doing an almost embarrassingly bad job at that—but because he’s sure Dead-Eyes can take her. Also, she isn’t armed. And might be able to tell him why the fuck he’s on the top of some wannabe villains’  _ Kill Today _ lists.

“Since you know my name and have apparently heard plenty of Dead-Eyes, I take it introductions are unnecessary. Got a name?”

The girl smirks. “Oh, I’ve got plenty of those. But you can call me Bix.”

That name means nothing to Tony. Good chance it’s an alias though, so that’s unsurprising. “Spy or criminal?” he asks pointedly. There aren’t a lot of people this proud of their fake identities. If Tony had to guess, he’d say “Bix” forges hers herself.

Bix’ smirk widens. “Is there a difference?”

“Touché.”

And damn, but he might just grow to like this girl if she keeps up the attitude—and doesn’t strangle him the second his back is turned. She reminds him of Vic a little. Of how Vic could be, when she forgot to play nice.

Oh, this is bad, Tony realises with a start. This is really bad.

“Who do you work for?” he asks, determined to push those unwanted thoughts and associations aside and pretend they were never there to begin with. He’s very good at that, ask anyone.

“No one.”

When Tony shoots her a disbelieving look, Bix laughs. “Okay, everyone. Maybe. Depends on the price.”

“That’s…very honest, for someone trapped on this island with their target with no way to escape,” Tony observes.

“Well, yeah. You’ve kinda answered your own question there, mate. No escape. No point in lying.” Bix shrugs. “Besides, if you were going to kill me, you’d have done it already. You’re a lot of things, Stark, but you aren’t a murderer.”

Tony thinks of a little girl with red locks and big, brown eyes, and knows with icy certainty that she’s wrong. He doesn’t correct her though. There may come a time when he’ll benefit from that false sense of security Bix is apparently feeling in his presence. Right now, there are other things to focus on.

“Who are you working for right now? Who sent you after us?” Tony demands to know.

Because that’s the crux of the matter, isn’t it? Tony Stark wasn’t supposed to be hunted. Not in 2014 anyways. He’s supposed to be watched, hated, abhorred, stalked, but his greatest concerns are supposed to be his failing relationship with Pepper, his fear of the things to come, and those damn paparazzi. Tony should know, he’s lived it before.

Bix sighs, tangles one hand in her long, blonde hair. “Look, nobody sent me. I came to find you because I could, not because I had to. But-“ she adds hastily, when Tony raises Dead-Eyes’ gun again, “I know who is behind it. HYDRA.”

Tony stares at her. He may even gape a little.

“HYDRA?” he repeats quietly to himself, thoughts racing. Dead-Eyes’ slight twitch is a damning tell.  “Fuck, HYDRA.” Tony presses his eyes shut for a second. “I forgot about them.”

He has. When recounting all his numerous enemies in his head, those fucking bastards hadn’t made it into the top fifty, hell, they hadn’t even crossed his mind!

Bix is staring at him like he’s the one who’s lost his mind, which really isn’t helping matters. “Well, yeah. You did steal their best operative, after all.”

Right. Fucking hell, but she’s right. Tony should have seen this coming. 2014 Tony  _ would _ have seen it coming from the start. But to Tony, HYDRA is a blurry memory at best, a ghost story from his childhood that had never taken on a clear form. They’d been the Captain’s enemy more than his own and even when shit had gone down with that project what’s-it-called, Tony had been on the other side of the states, watching the mess on TV like every other guy. Or something. He doesn’t actually know what he did, but it can’t have been that important.

Besides it didn’t make a difference in the end, did it? Even Barnes had given up on his revenge plot—although he’d given up on everything, after the Captain’s death.

“Okay, HYDRA.” The good news is, Tony is fairly sure they have no idea what he’s up to. What he really is. Considering HYDRA’s perchance for insane experiments, that’s very reassuring. Moving on. “How did they find us?” Because that had been what Bix had tried to bargain with, back on the tour boat. And if she’s right, if HYDRA has a way to track them, then Tony needs to get rid off that. Preferably yesterday.

“Oh, no, no, no.” Bix shakes her head. “I’m not giving up my only bargaining chip that easily. What do I look like, a rookie on his first day?”

_ A college student on spring break, actually _ , but Tony doesn’t say that out loud. “What do you suggest, then?” he counters instead. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me how to get rid of HYDRA.”

“Quid pro quo.” Bix shrugs. She does that a lot. “I want to know what the bloody hell is up with this creepy ass ritual and why you’re so freaked out about it.”

Tony narrows his eyes at her, but Bix determined gaze doesn’t so much as flicker. She’s way too confident that he won’t harm her for Tony’s taste—but it’s hard to get intel from a dead body. And the truth is, there isn’t a lot Bix can do with the information anyways. Not now, that the ritual has already been enacted. There’d be no point in doing it again.

“Deal,” Tony says and hands his gun over to Dead-Eyes, who pockets the weapon without so much as looking at it. He can probably tell how many bullets there are in it just from the weight, Tony thinks. Barnes always was crazy good at keeping track of shit the others forgot about—like ammunition.

Then, just to be a pain, Tony grins his best shit-eating grin at Bix and asks, “So, what’s your stance on vampires?”

* * * * *

.On a tiny, uninhabited island with terrible company.

Bix stares down—and down, fuck, but it’s hard to look at a kid that doesn’t even reach your shoulders and see a grown-ass man with a talent for building explosives—at the obnoxiously brightly-grinning Stark. It had been a bloody moronic idea to turn around and run  _ towards _ Stark and his little pet-assassin, Bix has known that all-along. Doesn’t take a genius to realise what a giant target Stark has inadvertently painted on his own back.

Running had been the logical choice. You don’t come back from failing a retrieval mission for the Asset you’ve lost twice, and not get executed for your efforts. HYDRA has a very clear policy when it comes to failure, that much Bix is willing to give them. Unfortunately for the organisation, Bix has little interest in an early death. And definitely not by the hands of some smug supervisor with a too-large ego and an ugly smile.

And it’s not like Bix doesn’t have a couple of hideouts. Just in case. It comes with the job to consider all the possible angles, and all the ways things can go to hell in a heartbeat. So no, Bix could have disappeared. Become a ghost. For a while, at least. So, yeah. Bix could have run. Should have run.

Instead, here they are. Three fucked-up people on the top of HYDRA’s shit list, conveniently stuck on the same bloody island. Wasting time and daylight playing word games because Stark can’t be bothered to get his head into the game.

And really, now that Bix has a moment to stop and think about it, it’s not at all surprising. The last time Bix lost something—a single shot, because that’s all it really takes, a text message that remained unread, an apology that wasn’t worth the paper it was written on—Bix lost it. Went on a two-week-long bender, dropped out of college, and joined an international terrorist organisation less than three months later.

It would be an overstatement to say that Bix has gotten any better at dealing with unexpected losses since. And serving HYDRA, for all that Bix doesn’t care about the organisation’s goals, was a job. For a long time, it’s been all Bix has done.

Then, there is the fact that it’s not just anyone who just managed to rise to the top of HYDRA’s hit list. It’s Anthony Edward Stark.

And Bix hates it, despises it, but that makes all the difference.

_ “Who’s your idol?” _

_ Laughter. Bright and bubbly and pure. _

_ “I don’t know. What kind of question is that anyways?” _

_ “Oh, come on. You got that look on your face. Tell me!” _

_ “What? No. I don’t have a look.” _

_ “Tell me! Tell me! Tell me!” _

_ More laughter. A genuine smile. _

_ “Okay, okay, calm down. But you have to promise not to judge.” _

_ “I promise.” _

_ “Promise and mean it.” _

_ “I promise. The sun doesn’t shine-” _

_ “-but I still feel your flame burning in my heart.” A quick grin. “Okay. It’s—god, this is embarrassing. It’s Stark. Tony Stark.” _

_ Silence. Then. _

_ “Who?” _

_ Laughter. Not genuine this time. _

_ “Never mind. You’ve probably never heard of him. Forget I said anything.” _

But Bix isn’t good at forgetting things. Bix isn’t good at letting go.

“Vampires?” Bix repeats disbelievingly, eager to think of anything but the all-too clear memory playing on repeat in Bix’s mind. “You mean like Twilight and shit?”

“Yes,” the Stark kid—and boy does he have enough attitude to make up for his lack in height—says drolly. “Like  _ Twilight _ . You know, there was a day when people would’ve at least said ‘Dracula.’”

Bix snorts. Getting the “the world was so much better and more mature back in the day” speech from a ten-year-old is a bit much. Especially when it’s self-proclaimed futurist Tony Stark. But hypocrites aren’t limited to dumb people, unfortunately. “Can we get to the point, please? What’s vampires got to do with this? Cause I gotta tell you, for bloodsucking creatures there sure is a lot of blood here,” Bix asks in annoyance.

Stark glares, but he keeps talking, so it’s kind of a definite win.

“What we’re seeing here,” he gestures dramatically towards the spread-out bodies—and really, they could discuss this just as well at the beach, couldn’t they? No reason to stare at those dead people, so why aren’t they moving?—“is the last stage of the supposed return of  _ he who is of Vrykolakas.’ _ The funny thing is, Vrykolakas isn’t a city or even a place at all. It’s an old greek term for a harmful, undead creature. One of the many predecessors through various cultures of what we today know as vampires. See, this ritual isn’t supposed to bring  _ someone _ back.“

The longer Stark talks, the more he loses the enthusiasm and over-the-top happiness he’s been projecting so far. This darker, grimmer version—while out of place on his childish features—seems more real than anything Bix has seen of him so far.

“It’s supposed to bring  _ everyone _ back. All these sacrifices we’re seeing here are supposed to return to the living again after a certain period of time. The meaning of their return varies, but most of the cults who’ve adopted it over the centuries seem to agree that their purpose upon their return is to seek revenge and destruction.” Stark’s voice trails of for a moment and he stares at nothing in particular. Then he clears his throat and continues his little history lesson as though nothing has happened.

“The ancient Egyptians believed that pure blood needed to be spilled to still the thirst of one of their goddesses, Sakhet. She’s supposed to be this great warrior, who watches over the dead as they travel to the underworld. Others believed that the betrayal and cold-blooded murder of a pure human will poison their blood, and as it seeps into the earth, the grounds too are poisoned. It’s why the sacrifice is associated with Pyrrhus. There have supposedly been cults who enacted this ritual in the face of their imminent defeat to ruin their lands for their conquerors. Some legends say the sacrificed children rose again, and that  _ the blood they had been brutally robbed of was the only thing they desired henceforth _ . A friend of mine used to theorise that that’s where our urban vampire legends first originated from.”

Bix tries to puzzle through all the information, but the results are less than fruitful. “There hasn’t been a battle here.” Heck, they’re in the middle of bloody nowhere. This island is uninhabited, there’s nobody here to conquer it, and most definitely no one to defend it. “Why would anyone want to enact it now? Let alone here?”

Stark shrugs. “You wanted to know what I knew of the ritual and I told you. How should I know why crazy madmen do what they do—or women. I have no doubt women can be just as mad and capable of slaughtering children as men, even if that’s not the point right now. We had a deal,  _ Bix _ .”

And wow, Bix can literally hear the air quotes around that name. Still, something about this isn’t right.

“How about the fact that there is a fast-approaching black dot on the horizon?” Stark asks with the innocence of a preschooler—which only has Bix convinced that there is definitely something about this ritual he isn’t sharing. He’s said a lot about legends… Question is, did he leave one out or simply decided not to share the facts?

Unfortunately, turning around proves that Stark’s conveniently-timed distraction is perfectly valid. There is indeed something approaching the island—and okay, it may be self-centred to assume that some dot on the horizon is heading their way, but in Bix’s defence, it hasn’t even been an hour since their last failed aerial attack.

Although this thing is definitely moving faster than a helicopter.

“It’s a quinjet,” Stark hisses. “Hide, now!”

Bix obeys without a thought. Not like there is much of a choice; whether it’s SHIELD or HYDRA behind in that cockpit, Bix is one hundred percent screwed.

But hey, at least the weather in the Bahamas is as fantastic as advertised.

* * * * *

.On a tiny, uninhabited island with a lot of bushes and rocks to hide between.

The great thing about being in the body of a ten year old boy is that you can fit into tiny spaces you wouldn’t look twice at as an adult. Tony has no qualms about exploiting that unexpected upside. Peering out carefully from behind a large rock, he watches the tiny dot’s steady approach.

He doesn’t know how he feels about another run-in with SHIELD. Although, now that Bix has mentioned it, his last one might very well not have been SHIELD at all. That makes a lot of sense—Tony really can’t think of anything he might have done that could lead to Fury wanting him dead. Okay, maybe  _ wanting _ . But definitely not actually ordering a hit.

Still, this newest revelation doesn’t actually change all that much. SHIELD might not want him dead, but HYDRA sure as hell does. And at the moment, those two organisations are inevitably tied together. Tony wouldn’t know where to begin with untangling that mess—and frankly, he doesn’t have the time to waste on it either. Why should he? It worked itself out fine the last time, didn’t it? Wherever he is, the Captain, Natasha, and Hawkeye can take care of them. HYDRA has never been Tony’s problem before, and he’s got enough on his plate as it is.

So. Reuniting with SHIELD is a big no-go.

Which means Tony needs to get a straight answer out of Bix, who’s turning out to be more slippery than he’d initially given her credit for. If they get off this island—and observing the fast-approaching quinjet, Tony is quickly forming a plan on how to accomplish that—they can’t be traced again. He seriously doubts things will be as easily resolved a second time.

“You think heaven’s gonna strike them down too?” Bix asks from where she’s hiding in some thick bushes on the other side of the clearing.

Tony doesn’t bother with a response. Mostly because he doesn’t know, and a little because he’s just that petty. The truth is, there’s always a chance the same thing will happen to the quinjet—maybe the island is warded against aircrafts and that’s all there is to it. But there’s a much larger chance that what happened to those helicopters was an unintended though happy side-effect of the ritual.

A sacrifice of this magnitude would release a great amount of energy. Energy that would have to go somewhere.

Of course, that would mean the ritual was done correctly. More importantly, it would mean the ritual  _ worked _ .

Tony swallows at the thought, and even though it’s a mere suspicion at this point, he tastes bile on his tongue.

The nice thing about the truth is that you don’t have to bend it to mislead people. All you really have to do is leave certain key elements out. Tony hasn’t lied. Everything he’s told Bix and Dead-Eyes—easy to forget about him sometimes, but Tony has no doubt that the guy is paying careful attention—is true. Almost all the surviving interpretations of this particular ritual are focused on the revival of the dead, sometimes the sacrifices themselves, sometimes others.

That doesn’t mean that’s the only way to use it though.

_ Stark stares at the crumbled papers in confusion. “A ritual to bring back the dead? What are we supposed to do with that? In case you haven’t noticed, these days we’re lucky if people stay dead as it is.” _

_ But Vic appears unfazed by his lack of enthusiasm. “Don’t you see?” She gestures wildly at the endless notes covering the entire table. “It’s not about the resurrection! Hell, if that part really worked, we’d have heard of this a long time ago. But it’s more than that, it’s a sacrifice of innocent lives. Think about it, Stark! Think about how powerful a magic surge such a sacrifice would create!” _

_ “I am thinking about it.” Stark snorts. Reaches for another book Vic has discarded on the floor. “Vic, have you even looked at these? All anyone talks about with regards to this ritual is destruction. Do you really think our planet needs any help with that? Fuck, if I didn’t know better, I’d think someone has already evoked this little piece of work and it’s the source of all our problems!” _

_ But the determination in Vic’s eyes doesn’t waver. “Loki himself once said that rituals are the crudest form of magic. That they harness power, and that a skilled wielder could use that magic as he pleases, no matter the intention of the ritual. Think about what we could do with that much power, Stark!” _

_ “You want to trust Loki, of all people, with our world’s fate? When Strange has never been able to confirm his words?” Stark asks disbelievingly. His resistance is born out of more than healthy scepticism and wariness of the gruesome descriptions of this particular ritual though. _

_ Victory has always been a bit… attached to the idea of resurrection. Seeing the fire burn brighter than ever in her eyes, Stark can’t help but wonder if she will finally, inevitably, burn. _

_ And set the whole world on fire in the process. _

They hadn’t tried the ritual. Tony had refused. They had found another way, in the end, but Tony doesn’t think Vic ever forgave him for not trusting her. And now, after everything he’s done to avoid this end, someone else has done what Vic always wanted. Years before she ever found the cursed thing.

Tony wants to laugh at the bitter, bitter irony of it all. It seems that no matter where he goes, this ritual is going to follow him. And now that it has been completed—well. For all he knows, this was always going to happen. Maybe it also happened in his other future. Maybe all the ritual does is needlessly end too many young lives.

_ “Maybe what you seek so desperately to avoid cannot be stopped.” Loki sneers down at him. “After all, humanity has a curious taste for self-destruction, does it not?" _

The quinjet doesn’t go down. It lands safely out of sight, probably on the small stripe of beach there is.

The dead children stay the way they are—dead. But that small reprieve does little to comfort Tony. Even if the ritual is worthless, a lot of hype around a silly legend, the magical potential in a sacrifice of this size is real, that much even he knows. The power has to go somewhere, has to do something. And with the volatile nature of these murders, well. Who really knows what magic does when left to its own devices?

Nothing good, that’s for sure.

_ Look on the bright side _ , Tony tells himself quietly to the noise of carefully approaching footsteps, _ at least we can hitch a ride _ .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full disclosure: This ritual doesn't exist and all the history stuff is completely made up - although based on some real stuff. Vrykolakas and Sakhet, mostly. Though I've taken a few (or a lot) of liberties with them as well.
> 
> Sooo. I know these aren't all the answers you're looking for, but it's a start, right? Any thoughts, impressions, ideas? What do you think about the ritual? And about Bix' actions? And hey, any expectations regarding that quinjet? Please feel free to share and have a lovely Sunday evening :)


	12. Reencounter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Natasha hates islands, everything is always Clint's fault, flying is a learning by doing experience that should not be tried at home, and a very dramatic, violent fight never happens. Except for how it definitely does. Just ask Natasha and Clint.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so so so so sorry!!!! I forgot to put this chapter up last Sunday *facepalm* Then on Monday I got sick and after that it just slipped my mind and now here we are *sigh* Still, better late than never, right? I hope you enjoy this chapter - even though I know for a fact that it's not what you were hoping for. Still, I had a lot of fun writing it. And hey, the Asset finally gets a voice, that's something, right? :)
> 
> Betaed by the brilliant [@folklejend](https://folklejend.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Happy reading!

****.On a tiny waste of land in the middle of fucking nowhere that nobody should have to visit unless the rest of the world has been run over by flesh-eating mutant potatoes.

It’s a well-known fact among SHIELD agents that Natasha Romanov is a very dangerous woman. It’s even more well-known that her terrifying self-control is a lot less in control and a lot more terrifying the longer she goes without sleeping. It’s a little known fact that, of all the places in the world, Natasha positively despises small islands.

All in all, it’s no surprise that Barton—who can chat up a drug lord who’s pressing a gun into his temple—keeps his mouth shut through the entire flight. Not that the silence helps to relax her. If anything, Natasha has all the more time to focus on all the reasons she doesn’t want to be in this seat. The crick in her neck, that’s starting to bother her. The itchy feeling in her eyes that lets her know she’s pushing her body’s limits again.

There’s a tension building in her muscles. Slow but stomach-curling.  _ I don’t like this _ , her gut seems to say.  _ I shouldn’t be here _ .

Natasha, for one, happens to agree.

And it’s not because the mission is leading them to a tiny island. No matter what Barton’s amused eye-roll implies. Natasha may be vicious, manipulative, and utterly unrepentant, but she’s always professional, thank you very much.

As evidenced by her ability to withhold from drawing her gun at the sight of Barton’s growing smirk. Thank the fucking heavens the flight lasts less than an hour.

From above, the island looks like any other island Natasha has ever seen. There’s sand, rocks, trees, and lots of sea around it all. Just looking down at the tiny blot of land makes her feel claustrophobic. You can cheat a dictator, trick a president, but you can’t outmanoeuvre an island. Doesn’t matter how good you are, nature’s always got you beat.

“Anything screaming ‘evil villain lair’ at you?” Barton asks with a furrow between his eyebrows. His tone implies that he already knows the answer, and he isn’t wrong. There’s nothing to see. Certainly nothing that could have set off a spike as strong as their sensors indicate.

“Maybe it was a lightning strike,” Natasha suggests.

“We should get down, check it out up close,” Barton says at the exact same moment.

Natasha scowls. Barton is right, of course, but that only makes it worse. “Whatever.”

Barton has worked with her long enough to take that as the agreement she’s not going to voice, ever.

“Don’t fuck up the landing,” Natasha mutters as they descend onto the tiny strap of sand even enough to land the quinjet on. “Last thing we need is get stuck on this island without backup.”

Hell, with the mood Fury is currently in, he might just leave them here for a few weeks. Or not. Because Natasha might actually kill him were he to even consider it. Fury has a surprisingly strong sense of self-preservation, considering the risks involved in his position. Possibly because of it.

Barton rolls his eyes exaggeratedly. “I know how to land a freaking plane.”

“Yeah.” Natasha snorts. “That’s what you said in Cambodia.”

Barton shrugs unapologetically. “Well, after that, I  _ did _ know how to land a plane. Learning by doing, right?”

Never mind the state that particular plane had been in by the end of it, or the hundred and twenty-three passengers whom he’d scared into a blind panic, for that matter. It had been one of their first missions together. Early enough in their partnership that Natasha would have killed him for that stunt had she not been so busy bleeding out in one of the bathrooms. She’d gotten her revenge half a year later in Las Vegas with that armoured truck, though.

“Right,” Natasha agrees, not quite as sarcastic as she meant to be. She’s not sure why, exactly, but somehow Barton and she always seem to be on the same page. Whether or not that’s a good thing, she still hasn’t figured out.

* * * * *

Jumping off the quinjet and landing in a crouch on the soft, white sand, Natasha slowly takes in the too-small space of land. The supposedly calming sound of the water crashing against the rocks in small waves only increases her anxiety. If there is anyone on this island—and there’s ample reason to assume there is—they’ll have seen them coming from miles away. Any noise covering the movements of possible attackers lurking in the shadows is bad news.

Barton lands quietly besides her, his favourite bow held loosely in one hand. He’s expecting a fight too, and it shows in his stance and wary assessment. “Let’s go,” he mutters and walks confidently towards the rocky hill. Eyes expertly finding the easiest, fastest route to climb the rocks.

Natasha follows quietly in his shadow, wishing all the while that it wasn’t just an expression. And that she’d have thought to bring some sunscreen.

Bulletproof vests, no matter how light, aren’t made to be worn on a beach trip. Whenever she runs into Stark next—and she’s going to run into Stark again; there’s no way he won’t pop up at one inconvenient moment or another—Natasha will bring it up. Not like Stark doesn’t like to indulge in their crazy project ideas whenever he has a moment of free time, and it’s about time someone other than Barton reaps the benefits of Stark’s generous insanity.

Still, it’s a tiny island. Hardly the most challenging place Natasha has ever scouted. She’s just complaining because, well. Islands tend to bring out the worst in her. Make her feel nervous, trapped. Never a good thing when you have multiple weapons at hand, no matter how much training you’ve received.

They reach the tree line without anyone opening fire at them. That’s where the good news ends, though. Barton notices it first, mostly because he blocks her line of sight. When he crouches down unexpectedly, Natasha almost falls over him—another reminder that they aren’t working at their best. Then again, this isn’t infiltrating a secret government facility in England. Mission like this isn’t supposed to demand their best.

Of course, it’s exactly those types of missions that usually escalate before someone has the chance to so much as shout “Oh, shit!”, but whatever.

Following Barton’s gaze, Natasha examines the stamped down grass and broken twigs. “Three people, minimum.” She observes. “Recent too; the tracks aren’t even a day old.” Which means the chances are high that they aren’t alone.

Great. Company is just what they need to make this tiny island even more crowded. Natasha re-checks her bites, expertly weighs her handgun. There’s an itch in the tips of her fingers, the need to feel the hidden knives, but she suppresses it. No reason to give those away, in case they’re being watched.

Keeping an eye on their surroundings with renewed alertness, they continue their trek over the island. They don’t directly follow the trail of whoever else arrived here, that would be stupid. They stay a few steps to the left instead.

“So, wanna bet on what we’re gonna find here?” Barton asks conversationally. He has a knack for appearing at ease at any given situation. More than once, Natasha has thought that he’d have probably ended up in this line of business even if his circumstances had been different. Maybe he’d become an undercover cop, hell, maybe a conman. But a liar is a liar, no matter who he serves.

Natasha gives the trees around her an appraising glance. They’ve almost crossed the island, going by her sense of direction, and have yet to encounter any strong-armed military bunkers or clueless natives. She’s beginning to consider that they’ve missed whoever else has been here.

Still, a spike that large can’t have been a coincidence or a natural phenomena. It would have to be actively harnessed, controlled. “Leftovers of another operation, possibly hostile, scrubbed clean for the most part,” Natasha says after a moment. No way would anyone be able to erase all the evidence of whatever had happened, not on an otherwise untouched place like this. Maybe satellite pictures of the last few days will tell them more, but Fury is sure to be all over those. He’ll let them now when he finds something that is convenient for him to share.

“Nice.” Barton whistles—quietly, thankfully. That man has less self-preservation than Stark. Which would be impressive if it wasn’t so damn annoying. Why does she always get stuck watching a suicidal fool’s back anyways? “I’m going with Loki is back and trying to piss us off.”

It’s Natasha’s turn to roll her eyes. “You always think it’s Loki. He’s a megalomaniac alien, not the bogeyman.”

There’s a small clearing ahead of them that might give them a better view on what they’re dealing with. Natasha picks up the pace.

Barton gives her a look. It’s the same one she received when he watched her kill a hostile driver with a pocket knife straight through his left eyeball whilst sitting in another car. “I can’t believe you just said that sentence with a straight face!” he whisper-shouts and promptly falls flat on his ass.

Or, well, he would have, if it wasn’t for his reflexes. As it is, Barton aborts his fall at the last moment, rolls over his right arm instead and lands safely back on his feet. The stunned look on his face would be amusing, if it didn’t transform into a mask of disgust before Natasha has the chance to enjoy it properly.

How she hasn’t noticed the bodies until that moment she doesn’t know. But she’ll blame Barton for it in her report later on, that much is a given.

“Well, if anyone cleaned this scene up, they did a shit job of doing it,” Barton states, voice lower but even, completely professional in the face of the violent sight.

Natasha counts over forty bodies, all of them too small for her comfort, all of them dead. She can’t be one hundred percent sure, but from the state of decomposition, she’d guess they died around the time the energy spike was registered a few days ago. It could be a coincidence, of course, but Natasha doesn’t believe in coincidences. Besides, huge amounts of energy tend to be volatile.

A slashed throat, on the other hand, screams ‘human involvement’ loud and clear.

In all honesty, Natasha prefers that. The vile nature of humanity she’s intimately familiar with. Better the devil you know and all that.

“Great. Just fucking great.” Barton shakes his head, a dark look on his face. “What do you think we’re looking at?”

He always does that, Natasha absently notices. Asks her opinion. It’s a recent development, and a strange one at that. It’s not like Barton has ever been one to discard her thoughts, not even when she was still more Widow than agent and he had no reason to trust her and every reason not to.

She can’t tell when it started, never mind why. Natasha has never been shy to let her opinion be known, particularly when she disagrees with someone. Besides, she knows Barton, reads him like other people read newspapers. There’s an added layer of meaning in every twitch of a muscle, every half-aborted gesture. An ‘I’m pulling the same move we did in Rome back in ’03, back me up here’ in every “Well, I do enjoy a good pizza.”

They weren’t always a good team, but they’ve grown into an exceptional one. Going back to saying out loud what they’ve spent years learning to convey silently seems dangerously like a setback.

Probably thanks to Loki. The brainwashing has seriously messed up Barton’s trust in his instincts, in himself. Just another reason to break the bastard’s neck the next time he’s stupid enough to let her close. And if that won’t kill Loki, well, all the better. Then she’ll get to do it again.

Carefully, Natasha follows the trail of the bodies, notes their positioning, the cut throats, their approximate age, the lack of weapons. “Looks ritualistic enough. If I had to guess, I’d say all the kids died at the same time.”

“How you figure?” Barton asks. He’s not watching her though. His gaze is focused on the the trees to their left, a thoughtful furrow between his brows, the one that says ‘ _ I think I’ve got something _ ’ rather than ‘ _ We’re being watched _ ’.

“None of these kids struggled. Even if they were trained,“ her voice doesn’t break, never has, but Natasha feels the same cold shiver run down her spine that was there the first time she watched a man bleed out at her feet, “some would have gotten scared, would have struggled. Would have kicked out with their feet, gotten cut on the blades. But I don’t see any sign of resistance. Which means there were at least forty-two people here, ready and willing to kill.”

They aren’t there anymore, that much is clear. No way would their tech have missed that many people, not that there is much of a place to hide here.

“They took whatever blades they used with them,” Natasha continues. Focuses on the trampled grass across the clearing. “Someone was standing in the centre of the circle, a possible leader.”

She’d continue, but Barton stopped paying attention several sentences ago, so Natasha figures there is no point. His gaze is fixated on a specific area of trees, focused the way he only gets when he’s zeroing in on his prey. But although his entire body faces towards those particular trees, he moves slowly, distinctively towards a corner a little too the left.

A diversion tactic. Not alone after all.

“Everything alright?” Natasha asks. It’s a calculated risk. On one hand, she’s bringing attention to what Barton is doing—on the other hand, anyone observing them would have to be blind not to notice his behaviour. Her calling him out is the least suspicious action she can take.

“Yeah,” Barton replies distractedly. Still focused on those specific trees. Then he turns around in a move so fast, had Natasha not anticipated it she would have flinched, and disappears into the bushes.

Natasha is halfway across the clearing, by the time she realises she doesn’t hear the sounds of a struggle. No grunts, no groans, no hurried footsteps. She finds Barton crouched down behind a bush, hovering above another set of tracks, a clear half-imprint of a man’s shoe in the soft ground.

They’re fresh. The places where the grass has been twisted around haven’t even turned brown yet.

“It’s not forty-two people,” Barton mutters, examines the tracks more closely. “But someone was definitely here half an hour ago. Two, maybe”

Natasha does the map. So does Barton. Their eyes meet because—there’s no way those unknowns made it off the island in that time. They’d have seen them.

“Maybe someone was sent to watch over the remains.” It wouldn’t be the first time. Either way though, it doesn’t matter.

Natasha straightens. If the unknowns are still on this island, they’ll find them. More useful than examining the bodies for sure, there won’t be much more they’ll be able to tell without a proper lab. And just like that, their roles are clear: Barton follows the tracks, and Natasha follows Barton.

Which works fine, until about 140 steps later, when the tracks split up.

“On the bright side: definitely two,” Barton quips. And plays ‘Eeny, meeny, miny, moe’, choses the right path. He turns towards her, but Natasha shakes her head before he’s opened his mouth.

“No splitting up.” It’s a demand, one Barton heeds. Natasha appreciates it, especially because she can’t explain it. There’s just something about this place that makes her nervous. A heavy, sizzling weight in the air, just waiting to strike her down—or so the paranoid voice in her head insists.

So they go right.

It takes them another 237 steps to realise that they’ve chosen the wrong direction.

“We’re being lead across the whole island,” Natasha hisses.

“Fuck.” Barton echoes her sentiment.

Then—

“Did you see a boat?” Natasha asks with renewed urgency, her feet moving faster on their own accord.

“ _ Fuck _ .” Barton repeats, the word heavy with sudden understanding. He’s not running, the ground is too uneven to risk it, so they both settle for a light jog.

There was no boat that they’d seen when they’d flown over the island. It might have been hidden, among the rocks maybe. That’s how Natasha would do it. But why take a boat, when a private plane is so much more convenient?

They reach the tree line at the same time—which is a fundamentally stupid move on their part, not that the bitter commentary in the back of her mind stops her. The quinjet is exactly where they left him, which is nice. There’s a girl with white-blond hair leaning out of the open side door, which is decidedly not.

In the space of a second, Natasha notes the shadow of a man—tall, built, tense, professionally trained—a few steps away from the quinjet, watches the girl’s eyes narrow on their approaching forms, realises that she knows that face. She doesn’t slow down. Jumps down the rocks at a speed that might have cost her her life if she’d lost her footing. But she doesn’t.

Natasha hits the sand. White yells something. So does Barton. The man turns.

And the world freezes.

Sharp, grey eyes that see everything and know even more. An expressionless face that always looks like it’s been cut out of ice—because that’s what he’s been, always. Ice. Untouchable and relentless. The Winter Soldier.

She’d thought he was long dead. Except that’s a lie.

She’d thought she’d never see him again. And that is perhaps not the complete truth—there’d been dreams, every once in a while, of his cold eyes being the last thing she ever saw—but it’s not a lie.

The world freezes. It tends to do that when faced with a legend even the Widows couldn’t live up to.

Natasha doesn’t. She’s been trained to be better than that—trained by cold, grey eyes, like a winter’s storm, a detail that must have accidentally been left out in every debriefing she ever had—and it’s instinct more than sense that has her remember the weight of her gun in her hand.

She fires once, twice. And despite all the confidence Natasha has in her skills, she doesn’t expect to hit the mark. No one has ever hit him. He is shadow and light. But he doesn’t duck, doesn’t evade. He could have. Natasha sees the muscles tense in preparation, the slight shift of his weight as he angles his body sideways. But he doesn’t dive to the side. And for a fracture of a second before the bullet hits, Natasha sees it, a flicker in the shadows behind him.

It’s a flashback to the last time they’ve faced each other—she catches sight of him too late, jumps too late, feels the bullet tear through her skin, hears the terrible choking sound behind her,  _ an impossible shot _ , they’ll tell her later and she’ll  _ laugh _ —only their roles are reversed this time. And the vividness of the memory catches her off guard.

But time doesn’t work that way, doesn’t repeat itself. The Winter Soldier isn’t Natasha, and the bullet bounces off his arm harmlessly. He’s the Winter Soldier. He doesn’t fail.

Natasha slows down. Comes to a stop still at least twenty feet away from where the Winter Soldier is watching her. Barton, as always, a steady presence by her side. He’ll back her play in this like he always does—and this time it’ll either get him killed or save his life, no doubt about it.

White is moving in behind the wheel, gesturing and yelling. Definitely not a hostage. Natasha does not feel a stab of disappointment at that. White means nothing to her. Is just another traitor in a long line of agents dead and gone.

Besides, White is not the issue right now. Natasha has two fully loaded handguns, her Widow bites strong enough to knock out a crazy mutant high on speed—the drug, not actual speed—and several knives she knows how to use like they are an extended part of her body. And Natasha knows, with a terrible, bone-deep certainty, that she isn’t ready to take on the Winter Soldier. Not like this. Not out in the open. Not with Barton as possible—likely—collateral. Not with White as a loose cannon.

She’s a Widow. Has to be right now. A myth like the Winter Soldier doesn’t get taken out by an agent.  _ Spiders, little spiders, be wary of the cold, hard winter _ , the voice of Madame echoes mockingly in her mind, like a nursery rhyme. And Natasha, Black Widow, Agent Romanoff, makes the call.

Her hand shoots out. Forces Barton to lower his gun.

_ Stand down _ .

If Barton is startled by her warning, he does an admirable job of not showing it. Neither of them has taken their eyes off the two hostiles. Not that they look particularly hostile at the moment. White barks a soundless laugh. The Winter Soldier just watches them. He seems unarmed—Natasha can’t pick out a single place where he might have hidden a weapon, and hell, she’s never seen him out of combat uniform, it’s weird—but she knows better than to fall for that.

Look harmless, that was the first lesson she learned. Natasha doesn’t plan to fall for it herself.

Suddenly, the Winter Soldier’s head snaps around, and that’s it. That’s their chance. Their opening. Natasha twitches, but doesn’t shoot again. She doesn’t believe she could’ve actually taken him—and maybe that’s why she doesn’t try. You can’t walk into a fight expecting to lose.

Then the Winter Soldier turns to them and grins—a wide, teeth-revealing grin that disturbs Natasha, more so because it looks natural, looks like it belongs onto that still, unmoving, blank slate of a face—and then he disappears into the quinjet just as White figures out how to get the motors going.

They’re off before Natasha has time to blink. Not that she notices. She’s still stuck on the realisation that the Winter Soldier  _ smiled _ at her. It’s ridiculous, but for some reason she feels as though she’s just evaded death a whole lot more narrowly than ever before.

Barton clears his throat. There are any number of things he should be asking. Like ‘Why the fuck did we just let these two clowns steal our only means of transportation?’ for example. Or even just a simple ‘Who was that?’.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone, that none of these reasonable questions are the first thing out of Barton’s mouth. What he says instead is conveyed with the same gravity any of the other questions would have deserved.

“Fury is going to murder us.”

It’s said matter-of-fact. And honestly, it probably is.

Natasha snorts.

Barton throws her a meaningful glance. “Just so we’re clear—“

“—we put up one hell of a fight trying to stop them,” Natasha finishes for him, with enough conviction to almost convince herself that’s how it really happened.

Barton grins. “You’re a mess, girl,” he says, and somehow she doesn’t kill him for it. Neither does she disagree.

* * * * *

The handler is furious. It’s a recent development. One that gives the Asset a familiar itch around his wrists, where the straps are always placed first when he’s forced down into the chair. He’s seen the handler scowl or frown, but more often than not the handler wears an expression of satisfaction or delight that is as confusing as it is welcome.

Satisfied handlers are good.

The handler is not satisfied. He has been swearing under his breath since he has caught sight of the two variables. The Asset does not like variables. Variables endanger the mission success. Variables anger the handler.

“They can’t see me,” the handler snaps after breaking into the quinjet—non-standard issue, used by high-ranking SHIELD officials—with ease. The handler rarely phrases his orders as such. It is a test, the Asset knows. One that leaves him without the safety of clear instructions. It’s been terrifying at first, but the Asset is growing used to it. Is becoming better at reading the handler, understanding what he wants.

“Understood,” the Asset replies, even though the handler as shown quite clearly that he doesn’t expect further acknowledgement. No. The handler expects the Asset to fulfil his orders with a confidence that is confusing. A lot of things about the handler are.

The variables take longer to discover them than the Asset expects. One—female, fast, dangerous—fires. A risky shot, while running on sand, but the Asset tracks the bullet’s projected path, knows it won’t miss.

He deflects. The Asset isn’t used to being on the defence—he doesn’t think he is, is he?—but his body knows what to do, moves to shield the handler, the action natural, inevitable. The Asset doesn’t question it. He isn’t meant to question. His purpose, as always, is clear. His handler has made sure of that.

The former handler makes a sound of annoyance that the Asset ignores. He isn’t sure what to do with the former handler. He doesn’t usually have former handlers. There’s only the handler, and the handler’s words are the only ones that matter. But the handler tolerates the former handler, so the Asset will too.

For now.

The Asset watches as the variables come to a stand a short distance away. The female will be able to fire three times before the Asset is able to cross that distance. The Asset shifts, feels the thin blade hidden within the bandage around the metal arm. He’s insisted on it, and the handler has tolerated it. The Asset isn’t sure why the eye-roll hadn’t been followed by punishment, but he doesn’t ask questions. Especially not that one.

He could throw the knife, take out the female. But the handler hasn’t demanded it, so he doesn’t.

“Yes!” the former handler yells. “Take that SHIELD and your fucking overcomplicated kid-locks!”

“There’s no kid-lock on this, damn it,” the handler speaks up, tired and frustrated.

The Asset’s head whips around reflexively, intimately attuned to the handler’s voice. And indeed, from behind the shadows inside the quinjet, his handler peers over the Asset’s shoulder for a moment with a strange expression on his face before he says, “Get in here, Dead-Eyes. Let’s blow this McCreepy Town.”

Dead-Eyes is the handler’s chosen codename for the Asset. The Asset isn’t sure why their mission requires a codename, but he hasn’t asked. He obeys the order like he is meant to.

He faces the variables again though—which he isn’t supposed to do, but also isn’t not supposed to do—because there’s a shadow of twisted ankles and bloody grins following in her wake, a  _ yes, big brother, I promise I’ll be better _ , and handlers don’t like variables. The Asset doesn’t like the taste of blood on his lips.

The Asset does what he’s observed the handler do when he’s interacting with people he dislikes. He stretches his lips widely, opens them to allow a flash of teeth to show between them, and fixates the female with a cold stare. Then he disappears into the quinjet like the handler has told him to.

The former handler continues to mutter from the small cockpit and then they’re flying. The quinjet and the handler, whose small body is sailing right past the Asset with a startled shout. The former handler doesn’t mess around with the speed limit, that the Asset remembers. The former handler likes speed. Likes risk.

He catches the flying handler before he can hit the closest wall. The handler doesn’t struggle in the Asset’s grip so much as cling to it, and when he yells at the former hander, his voice is at odds with the wide grin on his face. “Do you know how to fly one of these, Bix?” the handler yells.

“Well, no.” Comes the reply. “But learning by doing, right?”

An unexpected jerk to the left and a lot of cussing drown out the handler’s response. The Asset keeps a steady hold on the narrow shoulders and doesn’t wonder why he hasn’t let go yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Question time: Now that Natasha has seen the Soldier again, will she let it go? While we're talking about him, what do you think of the Asset's point of view? And where will Tony go next? (Spoiler: It's not the U.S.)
> 
> I hope you liked this chapter and wish you all a great weekend!! Also THANK YOU SO MUCH to everyone who takes the time to comment, I love all of you! You help me keep this story going!! (And I'll be answering them sometime today or tomorrow, pinky promise!!!!)

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are free... ;)
> 
> Follow me on tumblr: [tonystarktogo](http://tonystarktogo.tumblr.com/).


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